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RESTORE Patent Rights Act of 2024
To amend title 35, United States Code, to establish a rebuttable presumption that a permanent injunction should be granted in certain circumstances, and for other purposes.
Summary
This bill would amend patent law to establish a rebuttable presumption that courts should grant a permanent injunction when they find a patent has been infringed. Under this provision, when a court rules that patent infringement has occurred, the patent owner would be presumed entitled to an injunction to stop the infringing conduct, unless the defendant successfully argues an equitable defense to rebut that presumption. According to the bill, this restores historical practice for granting injunctions in patent infringement cases that the bill contends has been changed by recent court decisions.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
1 cosponsor
- Sen. Cotton, Tom [R-AR] (R-AR)
Money behind the sponsor
Top reported contributors to Christopher A. Coons’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.
- APOLLO GLOBAL MANAGEMENT $24,000
- THE CHEMOURS COMPANY $20,000
- INVARIANT $17,500
- BARCLAYS $16,500
- AXXESS $15,000
Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Christopher A. Coons → · Outside spending →
Actions (3)
- Dec 18, 2024 Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Hearings held. With printed Hearing: S.Hrg. 118-705. · senate
- Jul 30, 2024 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. · senate
- Jul 30, 2024 Introduced in Senate
More bills on these subjects (8)
Other bills that carry the most legislative subjects in common with this one (topical discovery — distinct from the procedural related bills above).
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Text versions (1)
Bills are re-published as they move (Introduced → Reported → Engrossed → Enrolled …). Each stage below is a separate text; pick two to see what changed. Data from Congress.gov.
Full text
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 30, 2024
Mr. Coons (for himself and Mr. Cotton) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend title 35, United States Code, to establish a rebuttable presumption that a permanent injunction should be granted in certain circumstances, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive Patent Rights Act of 2024” or the “RESTORE Patent Rights Act of 2024”.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Securing effective and reliable patent protection for new technologies is critical to maintaining the competitive advantage of the United States in the global innovation economy.
(2) The Constitution of the United States empowers Congress to grant inventors the “exclusive Right” to their inventions in order to “promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts”.
(3) The right to prevent others from making, using, offering to sell, selling, or importing a patented invention without authority from the inventor is the core of the patent right, ensuring that an inventor enjoys, for a limited time, the sole benefit of the inventor’s invention or discovery.
(4) Congress and the courts of the United States have long secured the constitutionally protected patent right through the traditional equitable remedy of an injunction.
(5) Given the irreparable harm that is caused by multiple acts of infringement or willful infringement of a patent, courts historically presumed that an injunction should be granted to prevent such acts, with a burden on defendants to rebut such a presumption with standard equitable defenses.
(6) Recently, courts have ended the approach described in paragraph (5), which contradicts the traditional, historical practice governing the equitable remedy described in that paragraph.
(7) Eliminating the traditional, historical equitable practice of applying a rebuttable presumption of injunctive relief in the case of continuing acts of infringement or willful infringement of a patent has—
(A) substantially reduced the ability of patent owners to obtain injunctions to stop continuing or willful infringement of patents; and
(B) created incentives for large, multinational companies to commit predatory acts of infringement, especially with respect to patents owned by undercapitalized entities, such as individual inventors, institutions of higher education, startups, and small or medium-sized enterprises.
SEC. 3. REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION THAT INJUNCTIVE RELIEF IS WARRANTED.
Section 283 of title 35, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by striking “The several” and inserting the following:
“(a) In General.—The several”; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
“(b) Rebuttable Presumption.—If, in a case under this title, the court enters a final judgment finding infringement of a right secured by patent, the patent owner shall be entitled to a rebuttable presumption that the court should grant a permanent injunction with respect to that infringing conduct.”. <all>
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