AI pilots that can fly military aircraft when GPS and communications are jammed. Quantum sensors that can guide ships and aircraft without satellite signals. 3D-printed rocket engines that could make hypersonic weapons faster and less expensive to produce.
These next-generation defense technologies are being pioneered not by government laboratories or traditional defense contractors, but by privately financed startups. Yet even as America increasingly bets its security on private-sector innovation, its leaders have made it harder than ever for entrepreneurial companies to bring new technologies to market.
For years, Washington has neglected America’s eroding intellectual property system, ignored foreign challenges to U.S.-backed IP standards, and failed to correct flawed judicial precedents that inadvertently weakened IP rights — the fundamental catalysts of high-tech investment.
IP rights ensure that inventions can’t be stolen or copied without permission, creating incentives for inventors to take risks and for investors to fund expensive research. Studies have shown that countries with stronger IP systems tend to be more innovative, while weaker IP systems may stifle innovation. In essence, a strong innovation economy requires a strong IP system.
During and after World War II, strong patents fueled the growth of America’s high-tech industries, empowering private entrepreneurs to refine, commercialize, and build companies around the breakthroughs that emerged from federal research investments.
Yet in recent years, U.S. leaders have stood by as the IP infrastructure that undergirds private-sector innovation has crumbled. In some ways, they’ve even accelerated its decline.
In the 2010s, a series of Supreme Court decisions deemed certain categories of innovation — including some advanced software algorithms — ineligible for patenting. That has created broad confusion about which inventions qualify for protection, making it harder for companies to invest confidently in research and development.
Another Supreme Court case made injunctions — the court orders that companies historically relied on to halt patent infringement — significantly harder to secure. That has left many companies unable to stop the theft of American IP and made investment riskier.
Around the same time, Congress established the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, an administrative body that adjudicates patent disputes. The board’s current rules allow the big established companies to harass innovative startups with repeated, duplicative patent validity challenges, burying them in costly litigation.
And the United States has also failed to invest consistently in international technical standards — the common rules governing advanced and interconnected technologies such as telecommunications. Poor coordination among federal agencies and insufficient engagement with international standard-setting organizations have allowed America’s rivals to play an increasingly prominent role in choosing the technologies and shaping the rules that America’s high-tech innovators must abide by.
The erosion of IP rights has made it much harder for U.S. startups, which rely heavily on venture capital funding, to secure the investment they need to enhance our country’s defense capabilities. It has also left small companies vulnerable to IP theft by larger firms — a particularly potent risk when those firms are affiliated with foreign adversaries.
Unfortunately, many in Congress still oppose reforms — such as the RESTORE Patent Rights Act, the PREVAIL Act, and the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act — that would strengthen America’s IP system and undo the mistakes of recent decades. Meanwhile, America’s rivals are seizing the opportunity to strengthen their own patent systems.
Take China as an example. Across years of policy blueprints — including its “Made in China 2025” and “Vision 2035” frameworks — Beijing has outlined a comprehensive plan to dominate global technological innovation in industries from aerospace to information technology.
China has backed its ambitions with extensive reforms that are explicitly meant to strengthen intellectual property protections. It has established specialized intellectual property courts, strengthened intellectual property enforcement, and adopted a national standardization strategy extending through 2035.
Now China’s defense sector is reaping the rewards. According to one study, China leads America in 66 of 74 strategically vital technologies, including forms of machine learning and advanced computing.
U.S. leaders recognize, in principle, that America’s continued security hinges on a thriving private sector. The first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy declared that “economic security is national security.”
But America’s startups cannot protect our economic or national security without strong IP rights. To close the growing gap with China, federal policymakers must first reverse the ill-advised policies that have undermined our IP ecosystem.
Congress should clarify patent eligibility for emerging technologies, protect startups from abusive and duplicative patent challenges, and restore reliable access to injunctions so that copycats can be excluded from U.S. markets. Federal policymakers must also devote sustained resources to promoting American leadership in international standards development and defending the patent rights underlying those standards.
America’s national security depends on the startups developing the technologies of the future. If U.S. leaders want to defend the country against 21st-century threats, they must begin by defending those startups’ intellectual property here at home.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
