The IDEA Act directs the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to create a system for collecting voluntary demographic information—such as gender, race, and military or veteran status—from patent inventors residing in the United States. This information would be kept confidential, stored separately from the patent application itself, and shielded from patent examiners so it cannot influence whether a patent is granted. The data would also be exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests and certain federal information policy rules to further protect inventors' privacy. Starting 18 months after the collection system is announced, the Patent Office must publish annual public reports showing patent application and issuance numbers broken down by demographic category, technology field, and state, while safeguarding individual identities, and it must submit a biennial evaluation report to Congress on how well the data collection process is working. The goal of the bill is to help policymakers and researchers better understand diversity trends among inventors and identify gaps in access to the patent system, without affecting how any individual patent application is examined or decided.
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