Mark Cuban Says This Trump Administration Move Is 'One Of the Dumbest….'
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban blasted a Commerce Department plan under discussion to charge patent holders a percentage of their patent value, calling it "one of the dumbest ideas in the history of business."
What Happened: In a post on X reacting to a Wall Street Journal report that officials are weighing a new levy of 1% to 5% of a patent's overall value, Cuban added, "The crazy part is that fewer patents will be filed as inventors try to protect their creations from LLMs."
The Journal reported the idea is part of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's revenue-raising push and could either replace or supplement today's fee schedule, a shift that critics say would act like a recurring tax on intellectual property and saddle owners with unpredictable costs.
Analysts told the paper that valuing millions of active U.S. patents would be difficult and that the U.S., which traditionally charges flat fees ranging from hundreds to roughly $10,000 over a patent's life, would become an outlier among major patent systems.
Brad Watts, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center, called it a "paradigm shift," noting that a value-based levy would upend a 235-year-old practice in which applicants pay standardized filing, examination and maintenance fees rather than a percentage of assessed value.
Why It Matters: Legal and industry groups have already signaled pushback. Patent scholars at Patently-O warned that a 1%–5% value tax would "dramatically increase costs" and make the U.S. an international anomaly, while Bloomberg Law reported Chamber of Commerce concerns that the plan could undermine the nation's innovation ecosystem.
Cuban's criticism adds a high-profile voice to resistance that has spread across tech, life sciences and manufacturing. He has sparred publicly with Lutnick before. In May, Cuban mocked the secretary on social media, showcasing a growing clash over how Washington funds government priorities without chilling private-sector invention.
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