The Senate Judiciary Committee is once again scheduled to markup the Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement (IDEA) Act (S.4713/H.R.9455) this Thursday, September 19.
The bipartisan, bicameral IDEA Act was introduced in the Senate by Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Senate Judiciary Intellectual Property (IP) Subcommittee Ranking Member Thom Tillis (R-NC), along with Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee Chair Chris Coons (D-DE), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Representatives Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Young Kim (R-CA) introduced the House companion.
The IDEA Act answers a call from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to allow the agency to collect demographic data from inventors. While research using name-matching software, dataset linkages, and other techniques has found that women, people of color, and individuals with lower incomes are underrepresented among U.S. inventors, the USPTO and stakeholders do not have a complete picture of who is inventing and patenting because the USPTO does not currently collect data from inventors. The IDEA Act would authorize the USPTO to create a mechanism for inventors to voluntarily submit their demographic data and direct the USPTO to make the aggregate anonymized information publicly available on an annual basis. The bill also provides privacy protections for inventors, ensuring that any information provided is kept confidential, separate from the patent application and any decisions related to the patent application, and exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
Last Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee considered and advanced the legislation by a bipartisan vote of 15-7. The House and Senate also each passed IDEA as part of other bills—the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) and the America COMPETES Act. In the Senate, the bill received a substantial bipartisan floor vote of 71-27 as an amendment to USICA.
