Sponsor
Scott Fitzgerald
Representative · R-WI
Representative · R-WI
The bill strengthens screening and confidential enforcement to protect sensitive U.S. technologies from foreign-adversary transfer, but imposes multi-year reporting obligations that raise costs, privacy risks, and may chill international research collaborations.
Scientists, researchers, and tech workers gain clearer screening of foreign-adversary ties, which helps prevent transfer of sensitive technologies to hostile states.
The USPTO can obtain supporting contracts while keeping them confidential, enabling enforcement actions without publicly exposing sensitive business documents.
Small businesses already subject to Small Business Act disclosures are exempted from duplicate reporting, reducing compliance burden for those firms.
Patent applicants and provisional filers must collect and report ownership-level foreign ties for five years, increasing administrative burden and compliance costs for inventors and firms.
Researchers and tech workers with international connections may be deterred from collaborations, funding, or hiring because mandatory disclosures about foreign ties could chill open research.
Small businesses and financial institutions face risks to privacy and business confidentiality if the USPTO requests contracts, despite promises of separate storage and confidentiality.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Patent applicants must disclose whether invention owners had recent employment, state-affiliated funding, or financial incentives from listed foreign adversaries; USPTO may request supporting documents.
Official title: To amend title 35, United States Code, to require the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to require disclosures in patent applications regarding ties to the People's Republic of China and other foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 4, 2026 by Scott Fitzgerald · Last progress June 4, 2026
Requires patent applicants (including provisional filers) to disclose whether any person with an ownership interest in the claimed invention had, in the prior five years, employment by, funding from, or financial incentives tied to a listed “foreign adversary” (China, its SARs, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia). The USPTO Director may request supporting contracts or financial records (kept confidential and separate from the application file). Small businesses already making similar disclosures under the Small Business Act are exempt.