A group representing big tech companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, wants the Trump administration to scrap a proposed rule that would limit repeated patent challenges.
The High Tech Inventors Alliance asked the administration to withdraw the proposal and met with the federal officials reviewing it.
The rule’s supporters say it would help small inventors who can’t afford to keep defending their patents against big companies. The alliance says it would make it harder to challenge patents the government shouldn’t have approved in the first place.
James Edwards, executive sirector of Conservatives for Property Rights, is a supporter of the rule.
“Reliable patents are the lifeblood of the American economy and the foundation of countless American businesses. When patents can be relitigated repeatedly at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, investors lose confidence and small businesses suffer,” Edwards said in an exclusive statement provided to The Center Square. “The USPTO’s proposed rule is a vital step in protecting small inventors from costly, duplicative challenges aimed at holding them in a courtroom instead of causing dynamic competition in the market. Big Tech companies and their affiliated lobbying organizations have spent countless hours and vast resources trying to kill the rule and preserve their favorite tool for stealing intellectual property and weakening the American patent.”
Federal records show the opposition alliance’s David Jones met with officials from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Aug. 12.
OIRA reviews federal rules within the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Lenovo representatives met with officials about the rule on Aug. 6. Honda representatives met on Aug. 11, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association met with officials on Aug. 17.
The patent office announced the proposal in October 2025. OIRA received the rule for final review on July 22, 2026, and still lists it as pending.
The proposal would change when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board accepts challenges to existing patents.
Congress created the review process in the America Invents Act of 2011. It lets challengers ask the board to cancel patent claims. Congress meant to provide them a faster, cheaper option than federal court.
The patent office says repeated challenges can defeat the purpose. Inventors sometimes have to defend the same patent in several cases, increasing their legal bills. Investors may also hesitate to invest in an invention as those challenges continue.
“Even extremely strong patents become unreliable when subject to serial or parallel validity challenges,” the agency wrote in its proposal.
Typically, the rule would stop the board from starting another review after a court or the patent office had upheld the patent claims. The board would also reject a review if another proceeding would likely decide the issue first.
Challengers would have to give up certain arguments against the same patent in other proceedings if the board accepted their case. Those arguments revolve around whether an invention was new or too obvious to qualify for a patent.
The proposal includes exceptions. Notably, the board could allow another review if someone filed an earlier challenge in bad faith to block future challenges.
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council President Karen Kerrigan and other pro-market leaders urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to help pass the rule in a Sept. 4 letter.
They said “multiple PTAB challenges perpetuate uncertainty, deny patent owners quiet title, and impose extra costs” that leave inventors with less money to develop their products.
The High Tech Inventors Alliance joined a Feb. 10 letter asking senior administration officials to drop the proposal.
Those groups said the rule would create “arbitrary and insurmountable restrictions” on patent reviews. They said it would help owners of invalid patents bring claims against American companies. Additionally, they said it would make it harder for generic drug companies to challenge pharmaceutical patents.
The rule’s supporters have also met with officials.
The Alliance of U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs held a Sept. 11 meeting with participants from Netlist, Sonos, and NuCurrent. Also, the Council for Innovation Promotion met with officials on Sept. 15.