PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.
Congressional Research Service
Version 00 · Introduced in House · Jun 28, 2018
Restoring America's Leadership in Innovation Act of 2018
This bill revises several parts of the patent law.
The bill changes the U.S. patent system back to a first-to-invent system, where the first inventor to conceive of an invention is entitled to a patent. Currently, the first person to file an application that meets all the requirements is entitled to the patent, as a result of the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
Several types of administrative patent challenge proceedings are abolished, as well as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office body that decides those proceedings.
This bill relaxes the standard of what constitutes patent-eligible subject matter. The only ineligible inventions shall be those that exist in nature independent or prior to human activity, or exist solely in the human mind.
This bill limits what types of publications shall be treated as prior art that could be used to make an invention anticipated or obvious.
This bill authorizes the USPTO to keep and spend all the fees that it collects.
People & committees
Rep. Massie, Thomas [R-KY-4] · R–KY
Legislative record
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Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Primary sources
Text links open the official source. We currently store references to these documents.
Source last updated: Aug 11, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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