Patent thieves harming Alabama’s Black workers and Washington must stop them: op-ed

This is a guest opinion column

Earlier this year, the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub — one of just 31 designated Tech Hubs across the country — received $44 million to advance biotechnology initiatives.

As someone who has spent years advocating for racial equity in Alabama, I know how transformative this investment could be.

The grant advances workforce development and training initiatives at Lawson State Community College, a historically Black community college with campuses in Birmingham and Bessemer.

The funding will also help ensure greater diversity in clinical trials, addressing long-standing racial disparities in medical research.

Alabama’s bioscience industry already employs over 14,000 people and supports nearly 1,300 companies. State researchers receive more than 100 bioscience-related U.S. patents each year, driving advancements across agriculture, medicine, and IT.

And it will continue to grow — as long as the federal government better protects the state’s biotech discoveries from foreign thieves.

Unfortunately, over the past few years, the government hasn’t adequately safeguarded those discoveries. The failure stems, in large part, from America’s top trade official watering down a report that’s meant to call out foreign countries that steal American technology.

Beginning in 1988, Congress tasked the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) with conducting an annual analysis, known as the Special 301 Report, to monitor how other countries were respecting American firms’ intellectual property. The report was meant to identify barriers to international trade and expose countries that violate IP laws.

It used to serve that purpose well, specifically naming countries that disregard our IP rights and recommending actions to address the issue.

For instance, in 2015, the report identified China as a top threat to American trade secrets and outlined a strategy to counter these risks. Compulsory licensing, a specific instance in which a foreign government authorizes its domestic companies to copy an American firm’s patented technology without permission, was discouraged except under extenuating circumstances.

But in the past few years, the USTR has gone soft.

Instead of defending American inventors and entrepreneurs, the government has practically handed over our groundbreaking technology to foreign rivals such as China and Russia — countries that the report had previously identified as notable infringers.

The document’s lack of condemnation for compulsory licensing has encouraged countries to take our inventions without permission. And it’s not just developing countries — the European Union’s executive body recently established a framework for granting compulsory licenses.The USTR’s unassertive language effectively tells the world that the United States will not stand up for our inventors, entrepreneurs, and investors’ rights. It’s a bad look for us — and it spells trouble for our local economy.

If we fail to enforce IP safeguards abroad — and our years of time and billions of dollars investing in new ideas can be taken for free — the $120 million in venture capital invested in our state’s bioscience sector between 2018 and 2021 will dwindle as investors avoid the heightened risk.

This means fewer job opportunities for workers who have historically been left behind in high-growth fields. Black representation in STEM fields, which has been slowly but surely increasing, will decline.

The only way to prevent these setbacks is to restore the Special 301 Report to its original intent. Washington must take a firm stance against IP infringement, and assert that the United States will not tolerate the theft of our property.

Our congressional delegation has an important role to play — by pressuring the USTR to conduct a comprehensive review of international IP policies and follow through with a plan to address infringements. In fact, the current administration just issued a trade policy that specifically calls for assessments of unfair trade practices abroad.

Future reports should address challenges facing our biotech industry, such as compulsory licensing and forced technology sharing. Simultaneously, the USTR must identify barriers to fair international trade while ensuring the security of our data.

The next report is set to be published shortly. So there’s no time to waste. We can’t afford to let other countries get away with stealing Alabama researchers’ cutting-edge inventions — and jeopardizing the economic future of Black workers and entrepreneurs in our state.

Cara McClure is a Birmingham resident who serves as executive director of Faith & Works, a Black-led, nonpartisan, statewide civic engagement, and social justice collective. The activist and community organizer is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Birmingham Chapter.