Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet: Intellectual Property and Strategic Competition with China: Part I

Ranking Member Johnson's Opening Statement

Thank you, Chairman. I share the grave concerns of my colleagues about the Chinese government’s theft of the intellectual property of our nation’s innovators.  We know that the scale of China’s IP theft is enormous, that it hurts our inventors’ ability to compete and succeed, and that we need to improve our laws and policies to—not only protect America’s intellectual property from the Chinese government—but also to mitigate the damage already done.  

The solutions to the problems resulting from the Chinese government’s concerted and systematic IP theft will, no doubt, be complex.  For this reason, I am glad to hear from our panel of witnesses today, who I understand are leading experts on the relationship between China’s IP theft and our national security and economy. Thank you for testifying and for sharing your knowledge on this important topic. I plan to take to heart your testimony and suggestions for how we in Congress can ensure the continued success for our nation’s innovators.  

In particular, I hope to hear from the witnesses how we in Congress can do more to protect the intellectual property of our nation’s small businesses.  Small businesses are the backbone of America’s economy: they create most of our county’s net new jobs, drive our economy, and are responsible for a substantial portion of our gross domestic product.   

Small businesses also drive innovation in our county. They are more likely to develop and bring new and disruptive technologies to market than large businesses.  In my view, small businesses need strong intellectual property rights to protect their innovations. This helps not only the small business but America’s economy as well: small businesses that apply for patents and other types of intellectual property protections are more likely to grow quickly, hire engineers and scientists, and succeed, than those businesses that do not engage in intellectual property protection.  

As we learned in last Congress, however, small businesses are struggling to protect their intellectual property. Any patent that is valuable has become subject to repeated attacks at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—often by actors who have no substantial monetary or public interest in the underlying technology. Their game is to drive small businesses into bankruptcy, as few small businesses have the financial backing to survive repeated attacks on their intellectual property rights.  

We already know that Chinese companies steal U.S. technology and sell it back to us. I hesitate to think what will happen when actors backed by the unlimited resources of the Chinese government will go after these small businesses at the PTAB.  

I want to make clear that, to maintain our nation’s innovative superiority, we don’t need to rely on prejudices and hate. Our country has seen an alarming rise in physical assaults, civil rights violations, and general harassment of Asian-Americans. For no reason other than being Asian. I want to be clear that we are talking about a concerted effort by the Chinese government—not Chinese Americans and not others with Asian heritage—to steal U.S. intellectual property.  

We are in an innovation war with China. But we don’t win that war by giving up our values and giving in to hate. In my view, we win by strengthening our intellectual property laws and policies, and by placing our American inventors—regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin—in the best position to out-innovate the Chinese government.  

And so I call on each and every one of us in this Subcommittee—from both sides of the aisle—to work together to get solutions.  We must get to work right now. There is no time to waste.  

###