; assignment Section 261 of title 35, United States Code, is amended— (1) in the first sentence, by striking patents shall have the attributes of personal property and inserting the following: patents shall be recognized as private property rights ; and (2) by inserting after the second sentence the following: As private property rights, applications for patents, patents, and interests therein shall be freely transferrable, in whole or in part, including conveyance by assignment or license. Any successors, heirs, assigns, or licensees of a patent owner, who receive a lesser interest in a patent, shall be subject to any and all restrictions of their interest in the patent, provided that the successors, heirs, assigns, or licensees have actual or constructive notice of such restrictions. . (c) Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that— (1) recent jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court, including Impression Products Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., have harmed the progress of science and the useful arts by limiting the ability of patent owners to exclude unlicensed customers from their supply chains