American Manufacturers Identify Steps for Kathi Vidal to Improve Patent Quality as USPTO Director, Congratulate Her on Senate Judiciary Vote to Advance Her Nomination

Washington, DC – (NewMediaWire) – January 13, 2022 – The U.S. Manufacturers Association for Development and Enterprise (US*MADE) – a coalition of manufacturers and American manufacturing trade associations focused on protecting job-creators from abusive patent litigation – issued the following statement in response to the Senate Judiciary Committee sending Kathi Vidal’s nomination for U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director to the Senate floor:

“US*MADE congratulates Kathi Vidal on today’s bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee vote advancing her nomination as Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. The manufacturing companies and trade associations that make up US*MADE applaud Ms. Vidal’s stated commitment to improving patent quality, which will spur innovation, help American manufacturers and grow our economy. Changes made at the USPTO over the last several years have hurt American manufacturers and empowered patent trolls to increasingly launch predatory litigation against them. Ms. Vidal should restore legal access to the post-grant process and begin to unwind several of the other practices adopted by the USPTO over the last several years that have harmed manufacturers,” said Beau Phillips, US*MADE executive director.

Phillips added, “At a time when U.S. manufacturers are facing significant challenges including supply chain and staffing issues, Covid, the threat from China to dominate global manufacturing, and seemingly endless lawsuits by patent trolls, US*MADE looks forward to working with Ms. Vidal to eliminate abusive patent litigation from the list. US*MADE urges the full Senate to swiftly bring her nomination to the floor for final confirmation.”

For more information about patent quality, inter partes review (IPR), abusive patent litigation and the threat to U.S. manufacturers, visit https://us-made.org/.

About US*MADE

The U.S. Manufacturers Association for Development and Enterprise (US*MADE) is specifically focused on preserving and protecting inter partes review and protecting American manufacturers from abusive patent litigation. Manufacturers are frequent targets of patent litigation by shell companies that produce no products or services. These job creators are shaken down for hefty royalty payments by plaintiffs wielding vague, low-quality patents that likely should have never been issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). To learn more, go to https://us-made.org/.

For more information, contact:

Lauren DuBois

(917) 573-2485

Lauren@US-MADE.org