IP Law Daily, CONGRESS: Senate IP subcommittee warned of international threats to U.S. patents, trademarks, copyrights, (May 16, 2025)

By Thomas Long, J.D.

Industry, academic leaders urge senators to strengthen IP laws and to increase trade sanctions on China to foster American competitiveness on the global stage.

The United States risks losing its competitive edge in business and innovation to China if more is not done to combat that country’s failure to recognize and protect the IP rights of American companies, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property were told at a hearing held May 14, titled “Foreign Threats to American Innovation and Economic Leadership.” Four witnesses from the business and academic sectors testified, with an emphasis on harms resulting from global infringement of U.S. trademarks and copyrights, particularly via e-commerce platforms. Subcommittee members also were told that changes to U.S. patent law are needed if America is going to keep up with China.

In prefatory remarks, ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), briefly brought up the recent dismissal of Register of Copyrights and Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter. Schiff expressed concern about her removal, saying that he thinks it threatens to undermine the independence of the Copyright Office. Schiff said he had written to President Trump to express his doubts about the legality of the action. This topic also came up during the subcommittee’s questioning of witnesses.

After his initial words, Schiff turned to the topic at hand—the role of IP in maintaining America’s position as “the worldwide leader in innovation.” He mentioned IP owners’ interests in protecting their patents, copyrights, and trademarks from infringement overseas, as well as the need to protect consumers from counterfeit goods, which are often poorly made and unsafe. Schiff also spoke of national security risks posed by foreign theft of trade secrets, including misappropriation by foreign governments. The subcommittee then heard from four witnesses.

Dangers of cheap counterfeit goods. In his prepared testimony, Aaron Bores, Executive Vice President, Product Development at faucet and plumbing products company Moen Inc., told the subcommittee about the proliferation of imported products sold under “imposter brands” though e-commerce platforms. These imitation goods create health risks, he said. According to Bores, “These cheap, often Chinese knock-off brands misappropriate Moen and third-party intellectual property to deceive consumers into purchasing products which use (1) materials that leach dangerous levels of lead and carcinogens into consumer’s drinking water, and (2) designs which fail to properly regulate pressures to prevent scalding and slip and fall injuries.” Some sellers falsely indicate that their products comply with U.S. plumbing and drinking water standards, further eroding consumer trust. Bores’ written remarks contained data on poor safety testing results for “top selling, cheap, foreign-made off-brand faucets” and related products including valves bearing counterfeit Moen logos and certification marks of plumbing standards bodies.

Bores asked Congress to take the following actions:

1. Refine the INFORM Consumers Act of 2023 [a provision adding a section to the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45f, requiring online marketplaces to collect, verify, and disclose bank account information, contact information, and tax ID information from high-volume third party sellers] to close loopholes.

2. Establish enhanced verification protocols for certification and certification marks to ensure only compliant products are sold in the U.S. market.

3. Facilitate interagency collaboration between the FTC, CBP, CPSC, and DOJ to enable coordinated enforcement actions against serial violators.

4. Strengthen IP enforcement by closing loopholes exploited by counterfeiters.

5. Increase funding and resources for Customs and Border Protection and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to detect and intercept counterfeit goods.

Patent reform and competitiveness with China. Mark Cohen, Senior Technology Fellow, Asia Society of Northern California and Senior Fellow, University of Akron Law School, took on the topic of patent reform. Cohen opened his written statement by pointing out that a Pentagon report recently found that China had reached parity with or even superiority to the United States in several areas of military technology. Cohen criticized “many in the IP community of the United States” for their “agnosticism or indifference” to the challenges presented by competition with China in the IP realm.

According to Cohen, recent legislation—including the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act (S. 1553); the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) (S. 1546); and the Realizing Engineering, Science and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act of 2025 (S. 708)—represent important steps in strengthening American competitiveness with China. “PERA should help in restoring the United States to a position of global leadership in key areas of technology, such as medical diagnostics, biotechnology, personalized medicine, artificial intelligence, 5G, and blockchain by restoring patent eligibility to inventions in those areas,” he wrote. “The PREVAIL Act improves [Patent Trial and Appeal Board] rules to protect inventors from costly and unnecessary litigation and eliminates fee diversion. The RESTORE Act would restore patent owners’ rights to a rebuttable presumption that a court will issue an injunction upon a finding of patent infringement.”

With respect to the RESTORE Act, Cohen told the subcommittee that injunctive relief as a remedy for patent infringement in China is “nearly automatic.” The current U.S. practice of denying injunctions “diminishes the attractiveness, importance and influence of U.S. courts when global IP litigation takes place in countries that routinely grant injunctions such as China.” He also emphasized the lifting of subject-matter eligibility restrictions in China, arguing that this approach increased that country’s attractiveness to innovators.

“To maintain our global leadership, the United States should strengthen and stabilize the incentives provided by intellectual property in our economy,” Cohen said. “As a first step, Congress needs to ensure that the administration and Congress itself has the necessary resources, legal tools, and oversight capacity to respond to these profound IP and technological challenges in a strategic manner.”

Difficulties in enforcing trademark rights in Asia.Written remarks by Bradford Muller, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company, described a case of counterfeiting by a Chinese company that was producing, marketing, and selling plastic pipe and fittings for sale in China and other Asian countries under the Charlotte Pipe name and logo. Unknown to Charlotte Pipe, the company had registered the “Charlotte Pipe” word and graphic marks in China in 2010. According to Muller, efforts to enforce Charlotte Pipe’s legitimate IP rights in China have been unsuccessful, with an adjudicative board and a lower court determining that the evidence was insufficient to show a likelihood of consumer confusion. While an appeal is pending, Charlotte Pipe’s Chinese counsel has confirmed that the infringement is still occurring.

“This is not theft of tech or trade secrets, but something as public as one of the strongest and most recognizable brands in the plumbing industry that has been in use around the world for generations,” Muller said. Muller indicated that Charlotte Pipe has had similar difficulties in protecting its exclusive trademark rights in Singapore. Noting retaliatory tariffs imposed by President Trump during his first term in office, Muller told the subcommittee that these efforts were not enough. “More must be done to hold China accountable, in our opinion.” Muller praised Trump’s additional tariffs announced on April 2, which also affected Cambodia, Malaysia, and Vietnam—countries he said were responsible for illegal transshipments of infringing goods. “We hope the President will reconsider his decision to postpone these retaliatory duties,” Muller said.

In response to questioning from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) about trade restrictions against China, Muller said, “Frankly, in our view, the tariffs can’t be high enough.” Durbin then made the point that tariffs constituted a tax that will be paid by American consumers, adding, “The question is, what will we get from paying that tax? If we don’t at least guarantee that we protect the property rights of American citizens and companies, I think we’ve fallen short of the mark.”

Global threats to copyrighted content from digital piracy. Copyright protection was the focus of testimony by Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel, Motion Picture Association (MPA), and former Register of Copyrights. According to Temple, “sophisticated global digital piracy operations are constantly exploiting gaps in existing enforcement tools to continue stealing valuable copyrighted content and monetizing that content for the benefit of international criminal syndicates.” These operations also pose consumer privacy and data security threats, she said. Temple urged Congress to follow the lead of over 50 other countries in adopting technological mechanisms to block access to digital piracy sites. According to Temple, the notice-and-takedown system of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is ineffective at keeping up with the rapid pace of online piracy and incapable of combating global criminal operations.

Temple testified that the MPA supports the imposition of “judicial blocking” remedies, or no-fault injunctions that, among other things, would block access to piracy sites. “Those countries that have implemented no-fault injunctions to disable access to structurally infringing websites have demonstrated through clear evidence and multiple years of data that this remedy is effective in reducing visits to blocked piracy sites and causes users to change their behavior and migrate to legal, paid video services,” she said. “It is now time for Congress to consider providing express authority for a no-fault injunctive-relief regime that will give rights holders what more than a decade of experience around the globe has shown is an effective tool to address piracy.”

Temple also testified about the importance of American leadership in artificial intelligence while continuing to provide strong protections for copyrighted material. “In formulating AI policy, Congress and the Administration should aim both to advance America’s global leadership in AI technology innovation as well as maintain the preeminent position of the motion picture industry and other parts of the creative sector,” she said. Her testimony indicated that the MPA favors a regulatory scheme that (1) clearly acknowledges the importance of strong IP laws; (2) ensures that AI innovation recognizes the interests of Americans in the creative industries; and (3) maintains the nation’s global leadership in both the creative and innovation industries.

During the question period, Sen. Durbin brought up Temple’s former capacity as head of the Copyright Office, in the context of the recent firing of Perlmutter and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Durbin noted that it had been “suggested” that Perlmutter was removed because of the Office’s release on May 9 of a pre-publication version of its report on AI and copyright fair use. Durbin asked Temple to tell him “what was the controversy in the report.” Temple replied that she didn’t think there was a controversy, stating, “quite frankly, it was a comprehensive, clear report that you would expect from the talented and expert folks in the Copyright Office.” In Temple’s view, the report “didn’t pick sides” and only expressed the view that context was important in the fair use analysis and that there was no blanket fair use defense for AI training.

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