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The Intellectual Property StrategistPatent Licensing and TransactionsFeatures

The 2025 Patent Landscape Begins With Many Pieces of Proposed Legislation

By Rob Maier and Eric Faragi and Benjamin Bafumi
February 01, 2025

The U.S. patent legal landscape in 2025 is poised for change. The incoming presidential administration is coupled with interim changes in leadership at the USPTO after Kathi Vidal’s departure, and several newly vacant, fillable commissioner seat openings at the ITC. Technology such as artificial intelligence — and changing attitudes towards those technologies — are evolving at an accelerating pace.

And, amid that backdrop, many pieces of proposed patent legislation are pending in Congress which could further — or possibly stifle — modern trends in American patent law, and could alter our innovation landscape for years to come. This article surveys that pending patent legislation.

IDEA Act

Inspired by the SUCCESS Act’s reporting requirement, the Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement (IDEA) Act directs the USPTO to collect voluntary, confidential demographic data from inventors and patent applicants, in an effort to promote increased participation of women, minorities, and veterans in the American patent system. S. 632, 117 Cong. §1 (2021).
The IDEA act would include a mechanism for the collection of voluntary, confidential demographic data from inventors and patent applicants, which would be stored entirely independently of individual applications so that the data would not be considered by examiners and would have no impact on an application’s success. IDEA passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee with strong support, with a vote of 15-6, and will soon move to a full vote by the Senate.

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