Bill Details
View committees (1)
AI Summary This summary was generated by AI from the bill text. AI can get information wrong.
This bill would make it easier for patent owners to stop ongoing patent infringement in court. If a court makes a final decision that a patent was infringed, the patent owner would be presumed to deserve a permanent court order stopping that infringing activity. The other side could still argue against that order, but the bill would shift the starting point in favor of the patent owner. The bill says this change is meant to restore what lawmakers see as the traditional role of patents: giving inventors real control over their inventions and helping protect smaller patent owners from repeated or intentional infringement.
- After a final court judgment finding patent infringement, the patent owner would get a rebuttable presumption that a permanent injunction should be granted.
- A rebuttable presumption means the court would start by assuming an injunction is appropriate, unless the defendant can show a good reason why it should not be ordered.
- The bill says this is meant to address continuing or willful infringement and to make patent rights stronger and easier to enforce.
- Congress states that the change would especially help individual inventors, universities, startups, and small or medium-sized businesses that may have trouble stopping larger companies from using their inventions without permission.
Official Summaries
Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive Patent Rights Act of 2025 or the RESTORE Patent Rights Act of 2025
This bill establishes a rebuttable presumption for injunctive relief in patent infringement cases. Specifically, if a 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.
(In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court held in eBay v. MercExchange that patent holders do not have an automatic right to a permanent injunction in a patent infringement case.)
Current Full Text
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1574 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1574
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.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 25, 2025
Mr. Moran (for himself, Ms. Dean of Pennsylvania, Mr. Roy, and Mr.
Johnson of Georgia) introduced the following bill; which was 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
2025'' or the ``RESTORE Patent Rights Act of 2025''.
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>