Report to congress

Infringement disputes between patent and trademark rights holders and states and state entities

On request of Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides an analyzing violation disputes between patent and trademark rights holders and states and state entities Reports to the congress on 31^st august 2021.

The US Copyright Office also produced a similar and more extensive report on a letter from Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy to study whether there is a sufficient basis for federal legislation abrogating state sovereign immunity in the state of infringement of the copyright. The senator’s letter was facilitated by Allen v copper Supreme Court ruling in March 2020. Although the US Patent and Trademark Office report did not reach a conclusion, the Copyright Office found “evidence that national infringement is the legitimate concern of copyright owners.”

With two exceptions, The 11^th Amendment of the Constitution provides that state entities are immune from suits in federal court:

1. If the state has waived its immunity; or
2. If Congress authorized the action under the 14^th

USPTO report

The USPTO report summarizes the results of a study that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) undertook regarding the extent to which patent and trademark owners experience infringement of their intellectual property by states and state entities without adequate remedies under state law and the extent to which such infringement may be intentional or reckless. The study was conducted and this report was prepared at the request of Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy.

The USPTO investigated “the extent to which patent and trademark owners experience infringement of their intellectual property by states and state entities without adequate remedies under state law and the extent to which such infringement may be intentional or reckless.”

The conclusion of Copyright Office report is that “the evidence indicates that state infringement constitutes a legitimate concern for copyright owners and that those infringements can cause harm to the value of the copyrighted works.”