Hostile foreign adversaries of the United States would be banned from using America’s patent system to gain economic leverage and undermine its national security under new legislation led by U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI).
The Prohibiting Adversarial Patents Act of 2026, H.R. 9142, which Rep. Moolenaar cosponsored on June 4 alongside two Republican colleagues, would prohibit the issuance of a U.S. patent to any person or entity who is identified to be a threat to U.S. national security pursuant to the Non-SDN CMIC List, the 1260H List, or the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List.
“The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] seeks out U.S. patents not because it believes in the right to own one’s intellectual property, but because stealing American innovation is part of its economic plan,” said Rep. Moolenaar, chairman of the Select Committee on China. “This legislation strengthens our laws against the CCP’s attempts to use lawfare to flood our judiciary with bogus patent lawsuits.”
According to data from the World Intellectual Property Organization, China has filed more patent applications than any other country over the last decade, with more than 1.8 million patents filed in 2024.
Similarly, nearly 55 percent of all U.S. patent applications in 2024 were filed by foreign residents, namely China, which filed a record 49,000 applications, most of which are funded, wholly or in-part, by the CCP through its Made in China 2025 plan.
“No country abuses our open society and our legal system more than China, and that must be stopped,” Rep. Moolenaar said.
With U.S. patents, companies not only can bypass their ban by signing licensing agreements for them, but they can also assert their patents in U.S. courts against American companies, said the congressman.
H.R. 9142 has garnered support from the High Tech Inventors Alliance.