Sen. Banks Urges Commerce Department to Protect American Innovation from Chinese Patent Scraping

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yesterday, Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) sent a letter to Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick urging the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to protect American innovation from Chinese companies that are using AI to scrape U.S. patent applications and accelerate the theft of American intellectual property.

The letter warns that Chinese companies are increasingly leveraging AI to analyze biotechnology patent information, develop derivative technologies, and file competing patents before American innovators can bring their products to market. This practice threatens U.S. competitiveness, weakens incentives for research and development, and further exposes the American biotechnology sector to Chinese Communist Party exploitation.

Read the full letter here or below:

Dear Secretary Lutnick:

Since the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party has prioritized biotechnology as a strategic sector, investing heavily in research infrastructure and training while streamlining regulations to speed product development and approvals. Too many U.S. companies were lured into China as a hub for manufacturing cheap active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and generic drugs and, consequently, the U.S. has become increasingly dependent on China's biotech industry. In a 2024 Biotechnology Innovation Organization survey, 79% of American biotech companies reported at least one contract or product agreement with a China-based or Chinese-owned manufacturer. This reliance not only creates vulnerabilities in our domestic supply chains but further exposes America's biotech sector to a country that actively seeks to undercut and exploit our industries.

China's efforts to steal U.S. intellectual property are well documented and increasingly sophisticated. Chinese companies routinely examine U.S. pharmaceutical patents to identify promising compounds and accelerate the development of their own drug candidates. They are appropriating American innovators' work without bearing the underlying R&D costs. Compounding this, Chinese companies are now leveraging artificial intelligence to rapidly mine patent applications and research disclosures and file derivative patents before the original innovators can even bring their pharmaceuticals to market.

Patent scraping is intensifying the Chinese IP threat and risks undercutting American R&D investment, particularly given China's rapid drug approval process. When competitors can appropriate an invention, make minor modifications, and obtain regulatory approval before the original innovator, the incentives for investing in R&D are fundamentally weakened. Moreover, low-quality, AI-generated filings can burden patent systems. Machine-scale applications with little or no meaningful human contribution may further strain USPTO by worsening examination backlogs and complicating prior-art analysis.

I appreciate USPTO's attention to the patent scraping problem and engagement so far. I respectfully urge you and Under Secretary Squires to continue prioritizing reform and protecting innovations that are vulnerable to AI-enabled duplication.

Thank you for your leadership on this important issue.

###