Global Dominance – The U.S.A.’s Views on Standards and SEPs

The current U.S. administration has recently turned some of its attention to patents and patent policy.  The first such policy changes were not specific to standard essential patents[1]. But, on December 19, 2025, the White House released a “Fact Sheet” in which it announced its intention to focus on 6G technologies and on standards themselves.

The White House’s announcement evidences the administration’s view that standard setting is a competitive endeavor – one with both winners and losers. And the U.S. does not want to lose the 6G race: “President Trump is taking decisive action to win the global race for 6G.”  The administration's stated goal is now “scientific and technological global dominance.”  

To further these goals, shortly after the White House's Fact Sheet was released, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it was creating a “Standard-Essential Patent Working Group to renew American leadership in technology standards.”  The working group will report directly to USPTO Director John Squires.  The USPTO announcement reflects the administration’s view of the world of SEPs in which standard developers and owners of patent rights do not get a fair shake:

Yet the SEP ecosystem has become increasingly hostile to innovators. Patent holders who contribute their technologies to standards face widespread efforts to devalue their contributions, unclear rules about their rights, and systematic suppression of licensing rates.

The intent of the SEP Working Group is to “counter the erosion of patent holders’ rights and ensure that American inventors—whether they work for Fortune 500 companies, small startups, universities, or in their own garages—can obtain meaningful protection for their breakthroughs . . . .” 

The USPTO will be working alongside the Department of Justice Antitrust Division “to restore robust patent remedies by selectively and impactfully filing express court statements and tribunal comments.”  By this they mean changing the law to allow for injunctive relief as a matter of course in patent cases, including in cases involving standard-essential patents.  In is their view: “that valid patents deserve strong protection, that injunctive relief serves important functions, that difficulty calculating damages can constitute irreparable harm, and that the public interest favors enforcement of patent rights — [and this will] provide the foundation for the SEP Working Group announced today.”

The announcements evidence no consideration of the public good, the rights of implementers, the achievement of transparency in SEP licensing (although it uses the term) or the innovation and value created outside of standardization by implementing devices.  The current U.S. administration has now taken a stand on SEPs:  it sees standardization as a race and has landed squarely on the side of SEP holders as it pursues its goal of achieving U.S. global dominance for important standards such as 6G.

[1]          One of the earliest changes was USPTO Director Squires’ announcement that all inter partes review (IPRs) must go through him.  In other words, from that day forth, Director Squires arrogated to himself the discretion to say yay or nay to all USPTO inter partes reviews.  See, Director_Institution_of_AIA_Trial_Proceedings.pdf. He then used this new-found “discretion” to issue numerous rejections of patent review petitions.  See, An Era of No: The USPTO’s New 0% Institution Rate | Patently-O.  The USPTO also proposed to change the IPR rules so that numerous patents were not even subject to inter partes review.  Federal Register :: Revision to Rules of Practice Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  The proposed rule change received over 11,000 public comments with nearly all being against the changes according to one analysis.  The Public Has Spoken – Again: For a Second Time, Stakeholders Overwhelmingly Oppose Agency Proposals that Would Restrict Access to Inter Partes Review — Unified Patents