The power of the purse entrusted to Congress is about far more than keeping the government’s lights on. Appropriations bills are one of lawmakers’ most effective oversight tools, allowing Congress not only to fund agencies but also to signal priorities, demand accountability, and correct agencies that begin drifting from their intended mission.
That oversight function matters now more than ever as the International Trade Commission (ITC) has increasingly become a venue for legal gamesmanship with serious consequences for American innovation. Bad actors seeking to profit from dubious patent infringement claims are using the ITC to target innovative businesses that enable major U.S. technology advances and support millions of American jobs, and change is needed to stop that abuse.
The ITC’s mission under Section 337 of the Tariff Act is straightforward: protect American businesses from unfair foreign trade practices, including the importation of products that infringe U.S. intellectual property rights when consistent with the broader public interest. The law requires the ITC to carefully consider that public interest before issuing any remedy. The statute makes clear the agency was never intended to function as a substitute patent court or to make decisions divorced from those considerations.
Congress created Section 337 to address a specific problem: situations where traditional courts lacked the practical ability to stop actors operating outside U.S. jurisdiction from unfairly exploiting American markets. When imported products allegedly infringe U.S. intellectual property rights, the ITC has a unique tool that federal courts do not, the ability to block those goods from entering the U.S. market through an exclusion order, effectively a product ban.
That authority was intended to address trade-related harms involving actors beyond the reach of U.S. courts, not to create an alternative venue for routine patent disputes that can and should be resolved through traditional litigation. Yet that distinction has eroded.
Today, the ITC has become an attractive tool for patent assertion entities (PAEs), commonly known as patent trolls. These entities do not manufacture products, create jobs, or bring new technologies to market. Instead, they acquire patents and file infringement complaints against companies that do.
Their goal is typically not to secure an import ban but to create leverage for a payout. Facing the risk of having products shut out of the U.S. market, companies are often pressured into costly settlements even when claims are weak.
This problem is growing. The number of patent troll cases filed at the ITC nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, accounting for more than 18 percent of the agency’s docket in 2022. In 2025, estimates range from 10 to more than 20 percent, depending on definitions. What was once a targeted trade remedy is increasingly being used as a pressure tactic against productive American companies.
Congressional supervision is critical to reining in these abuses, and lawmakers are taking notice. Through the FY2026 appropriations process, Congress has pushed the ITC to provide greater transparency into how it evaluates whether exclusion orders align with public interest factors, including impacts on consumers, competition, public health, and economic welfare.
That scrutiny matters because public interest review has too often become an afterthought in Section 337 cases, despite the significant economic consequences exclusion orders can carry. This has persisted even as disputes increasingly involve products central to modern supply chains and the broader U.S. economy.
Appropriators are also focused on transparency around who is bringing these disputes and who is supporting them. Scrutinizing the real parties in interest is key, including understanding the role of litigation funders. Policymakers and the public deserve to know who is financially backing complaints that could disrupt major U.S. industries or create leverage over strategically important companies. The national security implications become more serious when foreign capital is involved. The Commission itself needs this information to perform the robust public interest analysis required by statute.
Oversight of the ITC cannot end with appropriations language. Congress should examine whether the agency’s public interest review process is producing meaningful analysis or merely checking procedural boxes. If impacts on consumers, competition, or supply chains are being overlooked, further reforms may be necessary.
The same is true for party transparency. The ITC has recently proposed rules requiring parties in investigations to disclose entities that fund or have a stake in cases. The public can submit comments on these proposed rules through June 29, 2026. If the ITC fails to require meaningful disclosure, Congress should not hesitate to apply additional pressure through oversight hearings, appropriations directives, or legislative reforms.
Congress frequently emphasizes innovation, competitiveness, and supply chain resilience. Protecting those priorities requires ensuring that a trade agency created to defend American businesses does not evolve into a patent enforcement venue that enables non-productive actors to impose unjustified costs on innovators.
Appropriations oversight is an important first step toward restoring balance. But Congress should continue using every available tool to ensure the ITC protects American innovation rather than undermining it.
Michael Busler is a public policy analyst and a professor of finance at Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in finance and economics. He has written op-ed columns in major newspapers for more than 35 years.
