H.R. 5811 — Restoring America’s Leadership in Innovation Act of 2025

This section designates the Act as the Restoring America’s Leadership in Innovation Act of 2025 and sets forth the table of contents.

This section declares congressional findings on the U.S. patent system, including that (1) the Constitution authorizes patents to promote progress of science and useful arts; (2) the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (P.L. 112-29, enacted September 16, 2011) and certain Supreme Court decisions have eroded patent strength and value; (3) the federal government protects life, liberty, and property, including intellectual property; (4) a U.S. patent secures a private property right for inventors; and (5) the Act restores the patent system as envisioned by the Constitution.

This section repeals Section 3 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA; P.L. 112-29), including all amendments made by that section to 35 U.S.C. §§ 100, 102, 103, 135, and 291, thereby restoring those provisions to their pre-AIA text as of September 15, 2011, and reinstating the first-to-invent patent system. (As background, the pre-AIA first-to-invent system awards patent priority to the first person to conceive the invention and diligently reduce it to practice, rather than the first to file a patent application as under the AIA first-to-file system.) It further codifies a one-year grace period—as existed before the AIA—for an inventor's own disclosures, public use, or sales before the patent application's filing date, using pre-AIA interpretations of those terms. It expresses the sense of Congress that these changes promote innovation by protecting inventors' rights and enabling invention testing and improvement.

This section repeals Section 6 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act—which established inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR), and transitional inter partes reexamination proceedings—and repeals 35 U.S.C. Chapters 31 (IPR) and 32 (PGR), abolishing those Patent Trial and Appeal Board procedures for third-party challenges to patent validity. (As background, IPR allows challenges to issued patents on prior art grounds after nine months from issuance, and PGR allows such challenges within nine months of issuance for a broader range of grounds; the repeal restores pre-2011 law, shifting most such challenges to federal courts while preserving ex parte reexamination under chapter 30.) It expresses the sense of Congress that IPR and PGR have harmed innovation by enabling serial patent challenges and invalidating patents at high rates, that patent adjudications should occur in judicial proceedings, that the repeal abolishes those proceedings and inter partes reexamination, and that ex parte reexamination is preserved.

This section abolishes the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), established by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA), by repealing AIA Section 7 and reversing its amendments to patent law; reinstates the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) in place of the PTAB by amending 35 U.S.C. §6 to specify its composition (Director, Deputy Director, Commissioners for Patents and Trademarks, and administrative patent judges appointed by the Secretary of Commerce), duties (reviewing examiner decisions on patent applications and interferences under §135(a), with rehearings and no authority to invalidate issued patents except in ex parte reexaminations), and defenses to appointment challenges; and strikes subsection (c) of 35 U.S.C. §134 while retitling the section "Appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences." (As background, the PTAB succeeded the BPAI to handle appeals from primary examiner rejections—twice in patent applications (§134(a)) or final in reexaminations (§134(b))—and AIA post-grant proceedings such as inter partes review; the BPAI handled appeals and interferences but not post-grant patent challenges.) This section further amends 35 U.S.C. §141 to retitle it "Appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit," replace PTAB references with BPAI, and authorize dissatisfied parties in examinations, reexaminations, or interferences to appeal directly to that court or seek de novo review in district court (replacing prior civil action options under §146 for interferences). This section states the sense of Congress that these changes restore pre-AIA procedures, protect issued patents from administrative invalidation outside ex parte reexamination, and require judicial proceedings to challenge patent validity.

This section revises the funding mechanism for the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) under 35 U.S.C. 42 by (1) replacing the Patent and Trademark Office Appropriation Account with the United States Patent and Trademark Office Innovation Promotion Fund, a revolving fund in the Treasury, (2) depositing into the new fund all fees collected under title 35, United States Code (patents), or the Trademark Act of 1946 (trademarks), (3) making those amounts available without fiscal year limitation for all ordinary and reasonable PTO administrative, operating, and other expenses relating to patents and trademarks (consistent with prior use limitations) and for prior obligations, and (4) eliminating the requirement that fees be available only to the extent provided in advance in appropriations acts. The section further transfers all unobligated balances from the prior Appropriation Account and Patent and Trademark Fee Reserve Fund to the new fund and terminates the Reserve Fund upon payment of its obligations, effective the first day of the first fiscal year beginning after enactment. (Thus, this eliminates prior fee diversion, under which PTO appropriations could be less than fee collections.)

This section revises 35 U.S.C. §101, which sets the statutory categories of patent-eligible subject matter, by (1) retaining the existing general standard permitting patents on any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter (or improvements thereof); (2) adding an exception deeming a claimed invention ineligible if, as a whole and understood by a person skilled in the art, it exists in nature independently of human activity or solely in the human mind; and (3) requiring eligibility determinations under these provisions without regard to novelty (§102), nonobviousness (§103), specification requirements (§112), or the claimed invention's inventive concept. (Thus, eligibility is decoupled from other patentability criteria and limited to narrow natural/existing exceptions.) The section further states the sense of Congress that Supreme Court decisions in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014); Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010); Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, 569 U.S. 576 (2013); and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, 566 U.S. 66 (2012)—which curtailed patentability of certain abstract ideas, business methods, software, and biotech inventions—have harmed innovation, and that this amendment abrogates those precedents to ensure patent protection for life sciences discoveries, computer software, and similar inventions.

This section revises 35 U.S.C. 102, which defines prior art barring patentability for lack of novelty, to reinstate a first-to-invent standard (from the current first-inventor-to-file standard enacted in 2011). Under the new (a), a person is not entitled to a patent if (1) the invention was known or used by others in the U.S., or patented or described in a printed publication anywhere, before the applicant's invention thereof; (2) the invention was patented or published anywhere, or in public use or on sale in the U.S., more than one year before the U.S. patent application date; (3) the invention was abandoned; (4) the invention was first patented or subject to an inventor's certificate abroad by the applicant or assigns on a foreign filing more than 12 months before the U.S. application; (5) the invention was described in another U.S. patent or published application (meeting specified criteria for international applications) filed before the applicant's invention; (6) the applicant did not invent the subject matter; or (7) another inventor establishes prior invention (considering conception, reduction to practice, and diligence) in an interference under 35 U.S.C. 135 or 291, or the invention was made in the U.S. by another who did not abandon, suppress, or conceal it. New subsection (b) excludes from prior art certain disclosures in patent applications and patents if, before issuance, (1) the information was obtained from the inventor or joint inventor; (2) it was publicly disclosed by the inventor or joint inventor during the one-year period prior to the application after which no earlier patent application was effectively filed; or (3) it and the claimed invention were commonly owned or subject to assignment to the same person by the claimed invention's effective filing date. (Thus, the changes prioritize date of invention over filing date, potentially increasing disputes over proof of invention dates while limiting some prior art to U.S.-based activity.)

This section establishes a new Section 106 of title 35, United States Code, declaring that a patent right is a private property right secured to an inventor upon issuance that may only be revoked by a court ruling in a judicial proceeding, unless the patent owner consents to an administrative or other procedure. The section amends Section 261 of title 35, United States Code, (1) to recognize patents as private property rights (from having the attributes of personal property) and (2) to provide that, as private property rights, applications for patents, patents, and interests therein are freely transferable in whole or in part (including by assignment or license), with successors, heirs, assigns, or licensees receiving a lesser interest bound by any restrictions on that interest if they have actual or constructive notice thereof. The section states the sense of Congress that certain Supreme Court decisions—including Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group (2018) and Impression Products Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc.—have harmed innovation by treating patents as public franchises rather than private property rights and by limiting patent owners' ability to impose use restrictions on successors or exclude unlicensed parties from supply chains.

This section revises patent application publication requirements under 35 U.S.C. 122(b) to authorize publication only upon request of the applicant (from automatic publication 18 months after filing unless a nonpublication request is filed) and to prohibit public availability of any application information until a patent issues. (Thus, patent applications remain confidential unless the applicant elects publication or a patent grants.) It also expresses the sense of Congress that prior automatic publication harms U.S. innovation by creating prior art that can bar subsequent patents on the same invention and by exposing inventions to foreign appropriation.

This section revises 35 U.S.C. 282(a) to extend the presumption of validity for issued patents to any judicial or administrative proceeding in federal or state courts or agencies (previously limited to federal court actions); to structure the independent presumption of validity for each claim, including dependent or multiple dependent claims; and to codify that the challenger must prove invalidity by clear and convincing evidence. The section also adds a new subsection (d) tolling a patent's term from the date a validity challenge is raised in an action until its resolution by the court, after which the term resumes, and authorizing courts to award damages to the patent owner for bad faith challenges. (Thus, patent holders retain their full term exclusivity despite litigation delays.)

This section amends the statutory authority for federal courts to grant injunctions in patent cases to presume that, upon a finding of infringement, further infringement causes irreparable harm to the patent owner (i.e., the patent owner or exclusive licensee), rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence from the infringer that no such harm would occur, and clarifies that patent owners need not make or sell a product covered by the patent to demonstrate harm. The section states the sense of Congress that the amendment abrogates the Supreme Court's ruling in *eBay Inc. v. MercExchange*, 547 U.S. 388 (2006), and subsequent lower court interpretations thereof, which applied a multi-factor equitable test without such a presumption.

This section repeals Section 15 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act—which had prospectively eliminated the best mode requirement (i.e., the obligation under pre-AIA law for patent applicants to set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor for carrying out the invention, with nondisclosure serving as a basis for patent invalidity)—and restores such requirement to its pre-AIA status.