Intel has been the subject of an ongoing news story in recent days, with the announcement by the Trump administration that the United States government would be taking a 10 percent stake in the tech company in a move designed to protect the American taxpayer’s financial interest.
Amid the back-and-forth public negotiation dominating the headlines, another story involving Intel and the Trump administration has been playing out. One that could have much broader implications for those concerned about property rights, the separation of powers, and draining the swamp.
It all began when through the CHIPS Act, the Biden administration lavished Intel with billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts, in part, due to the millions the company spent on lobbying for support. Despite its well-chronicled array of problems and setbacks, it hasn’t been a great run for Intel.
It’s precisely those billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Intel under Joe Biden that likely motivated the Trump administration into taking the unusual step of demanding a government stake in the struggling company. The president wants to try and protect taxpayers and recoup something in the aftermath of the billions in subsidies.
But it’s not just taxpayers’ dollars. Intel was also the beneficiary of outrageous government favoritism by the Biden administration’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that went well beyond the usual corporate subsidy. The Biden administration manipulated our patent system to provide unfair advantage by helping Intel avoid paying a substantial penalty for abusing that system.
Normally, patent matters can be a bit dry, some might even say dull. Not this one. Consider that in 2021, Intel lost a jury verdict on patent infringement with damages totaling over $2 billion. A federal district court entered judgment against Intel and rejected its claim that the patents were invalid. Intel went through the USPTO’s normal process attempting to invalidate the patents and lost.
On top of the loss, they were also legally barred from submitting additional challenges to the patents in question. That should have been the finale. But enter the Biden administration and its lawless PTO director, who seemingly gave Intel a new path to avoid paying the multibillion-dollar jury verdict for infringing patents by allowing two shadowy groups of unknown affiliation to file new patent challenges on the same issues in which Intel had been barred from challenging.
This is especially egregious because Intel was formerly a private sector client of the Biden patent office director. Despite this clear conflict, the Biden director’s personal intervention opened a new legal option for Intel, based on novel readings of the law (which the Trump administration has already nixed) to benefit from more challenges to the verdict and avoid paying on its obligations.
Beyond striking the Biden administration’s misguided legal theory, the Trump administration should demand remand of the issue from the courts back to the Executive branch now under the Trump administration. This action would be a strong signal that property rights will be protected, our patent system defended, and would be yet another rebuke to the Biden administration’s lawless and abusive behaviors.
As a coalition of conservatives put so well in their letter to Secretary of Commerce Lutnick, “by securing remand of these cases to the USPTO, you will have restored integrity to the process, struck a blow against swamp culture, and reversed the abuses allowed during the Biden Administration.
“Also, conducting a thorough investigation will send a powerful message to abusers of the patent system: the Trump Administration will hold those who engage in ‘serious misconduct’ accountable and such parties will no longer be allowed to run roughshod over the inventors and entrepreneurs whose ingenuity and investment propel innovation.”
In review: the Biden administration’s behavior was the very definition of “swampy.” After Intel lost in court becoming liable for $2 billion in damages, “someone” created two shell companies to challenge the patents Intel had infringed. Director Vidal discovered a new legal theory which served to advance Intel’s interests and placed Intel in the lead petitioner role despite the earlier prohibition, while refusing to look into whether Intel had a role in creating the shell companies, despite a reported anonymous submission to the House Oversight Committee claiming just that.
The Trump administration has yet another opportunity to fix one of the serious problems left to it by the Biden administration. Sadly, I fear, it will not be the last such problem.