TAPP Writes to Secretary of Commerce to Oppose ETHIC Act, Protect IP

The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity today wrote to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to express the organization's opposition to the Eliminating Thickets to Improve Competition (ETHIC) Act (H.R. 3269, S. 2276), which would undermine the constitutionally guaranteed patent rights that America’s innovators expect and enjoy.

In the letter, TAPP wrote, in part:

What most innovators do is build upon their past work: They strive constantly to “build a better mousetrap” to ensure that the world continues to beat a path to their door. It’s a natural process of continual improvement of one’s thinking about how to solve a problem and satisfy people’s needs. In our current paradigm, this leads to innovators building a cogent patent portfolio. Unfortunately, unscrupulous detractors use derogatory terms such as “patent thickets” and “product hopping” to describe patent portfolios. We are concerned that building a patent portfolio is being equated unjustifiably with abusing the patent system. Motivated by such narratives, the ETHIC Act seeks to curtail a natural, dynamic process.

Without the current patent protections that the detractors are railing against, some undeserving interloper could swoop in to produce the next iteration of an invention, unfairly exploiting the original innovator’s ingenuity, hard work, and investment.

Also of great concern to us, the bill would specifically bar pharmaceutical companies from asserting more than one patent from a portfolio in litigation. This restriction demonstrates an unfamiliarity with how complex products, particularly biopharmaceuticals, are developed—i.e., often with one new therapy comprising multiple patented innovations. It also ignores the rigorous regulatory regime in which medicines are developed—one in which every new delivery method and formulary is subject to extensive testing, including human trials. This is after each innovation must independently satisfy rigorous standards of novelty, utility, and nonobviousness, even to qualify for patent protection.

TAPP concluded the letter by urging Secretary Lutnick to oppose vigorously every policy which, like the ETHIC Act, should attempt to undermine American innovation.

Read the full letter here.