On Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump took his oath of office, formally initiating his second term as the president of the United States. In the wake of this monumental shift in leadership and political power, many Americans wonder how the second Trump administration will impact intellectual property (IP) policy both domestically and abroad. Over the course of Trump’s past two political campaigns, the president did not make IP a central focus of either platform. Nevertheless, if Trump’s prior presidential term serves as any indication of what is to come, we can expect to see several significant shifts in the IP landscape, most notably pro-patent legislative reform, a continued push for artificial intelligence (AI) development accompanied by a broadening of patent protection for AI inventions, and a declining efficiency and productivity of patent application processing and review.

Expanding the Creation and Enforcement of Patent Rights