USPTO and USWCC to Host Women's Entrepreneurship Symposium in Honor of Women's History Month

Washington – The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the United States Women's Chamber of Commerce (USWCC) will host a women’s entrepreneurship symposium Friday, March 11, focused on women entrepreneurs, the importance of intellectual property protection for their innovations, and how to leverage economic opportunities for women-owned businesses. The symposium will be held from 9:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Va.
U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), chair of the Senate’s Small Business Committee, will serve as the symposium’s keynote speaker. Additional confirmed speakers include newly-appointed Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Teresa Stanek Rea and CEO of the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce Margot Dorfman, as well as experts in intellectual property law, government leaders and successful entrepreneurs.
“Women-owned businesses make a significant impact on the U.S. economy and more attention needs to be given to identifying opportunities that support and encourage women to become entrepreneurs and innovators,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), 7.8 million firms were owned by women in 2007, accounting for almost 30 percent of all non-farm, privately held U.S. firms. Women-owned firms had total receipts of $1.2 trillion that year, and firms with paid employees employed 7.6 million workers.
The symposium will offer networking opportunities with experts in the intellectual property field as well as government and industry representatives, who will help attendees gain insight into all facets of the business cycle. Agenda topics include intellectual property in the global marketplace, strategies to leverage intellectual property assets, accessing financial resources, driving business growth by leveraging business relationships, and federal contracting.Registration for this one-day event is $41.00 and includes all conference sessions and materials, light refreshments, a keynote luncheon and a networking reception.

WIPO Director General Addresses the Future of Copyright

Geneva, February 24, 2011PR/2011/679
WIPO Director General Francis Gurry today said that copyright needs to evolve to current technological realities or risk becoming irrelevant. Speaking at a conference hosted by Australia’s Faculty of Law of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on the future of copyright, Mr. Gurry said there is no “single magical answer” to the development of a successful policy response to the challenges facing copyright in the digital age, but a combination of “law, infrastructure, cultural change, institutional collaboration and better business models.”
Mr. Gurry said the central question facing the evolution of copyright policy is how to maintain a balance between availability of cultural works at affordable prices while assuring a dignified economic existence for creators and performers. Digital technology is having a radical impact on those balances. “Rather than resist it, we need to accept the inevitability of technological change and to seek an intelligent engagement with it,” he said. “There is, in any case, no other choice – either the copyright system adapts to the natural advantage that has evolved or it will perish.”
The Director General said there are three main principles that should guide the development of a successful policy response. The first is “neutrality to technology and to the business models developed in response to technology.” He said the purpose of copyright is not to influence technological possibilities for creative expression or the business models built on those technological possibilities, nor to preserve business models established under obsolete technologies. “Its purpose is…to work with any and all technologies for the production and distribution of cultural works and to extract some value from the cultural exchanges made possible by those technologies to return to creators and performers and the business associates engaged by them to facilitate the cultural exchanges through the use of the technologies. Copyright should be about promoting cultural dynamism, not preserving or promoting vested business interests.”
A second principle, he said is “comprehensiveness and coherence in the policy response.” Mr. Gurry recognized the limitation of law to provide a comprehensive answer and said that “infrastructure is as important a part of the solution as law.” In this respect, he said collective management societies “need to re-shape and to evolve“ as their present infrastructure is out-dated as “it represents a world of separate territories and a world where right-holders expressed themselves in different media, not the multi-jurisdictional world of the Internet or the convergence of expression in digital technology.”
“We need a global infrastructure that permits simple, global licensing, one that makes the task of licensing cultural works legally on the Internet as easy as it is to obtain such works there illegally,” he said.
In this respect, Mr. Gurry said “an international music registry -- a global repertoire database -- would be a very valuable and needed step in the direction of establishing the infrastructure for global licensing. And, secondly, in order to be successful, future global infrastructure must work with the existing collecting societies and not seek to replace them.”
The culture of the Internet also needs to be taken into consideration. Referring to the high rates of illegal downloading, Mr. Gurry said “In order to effect a change in attitude, I believe that we need to re-formulate the question that most people see or hear about copyright and the Internet. People do not respond to being called pirates…They would respond, I believe, to a challenge to sharing responsibility for cultural policy. We need to speak less in terms of piracy and more in terms of the threat to the financial viability of culture in the 21st Century, because it is this which is at risk if we do not have an effective, properly balanced copyright policy.” The third guiding principle for a successful response to the digital challenge is the need more simplicity in copyright. Mr. Gurry said “Copyright is complicated and complex, reflecting the successive waves of technological development in the media of creative expression from printing through to digital technology, and the business responses to those different media, “ warning “We risk losing our audience and public support if we cannot make understanding of the system more accessible.”

News from the US Patent and Trademark Office

January 31, 2011

U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY GARY LOCKE NAMES NEW APPOINTMENTS TO PATENT AND TRADEMARK ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today named new members to fill three vacancies on the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) and three vacancies on the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC).
The committees were created by the 1999 American Inventors Protection Act to advise the Secretary of Commerce and the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the management of patent and trademark operations including goals, performance, budget, and user fees. Each committee has nine voting members who are appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the Secretary of Commerce. Each member serves a three-year term.
“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office faces tough challenges as it works to reduce its backlog of patent applications, enhance patent and trademark quality and become more efficient,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said. “Input from these advisory committees is critical to our efforts to support American innovation, create U.S. jobs and make U.S. businesses more competitive in the global economy.”
The new and reappointed PPAC members are:
Louis J. Foreman: Founder and Chief Executive of Enventys, an integrated product design and engineering firm. Foreman has created five successful start-up companies in the last 20 years and is named as the inventor on nine U.S. patents. He volunteers his time teaching small business classes at Central Piedmont Community College. He founded The Inventors Network, a non-profit organization that provides education and networking opportunities to inventors. Foreman has previously served as a member of the PPAC, and is being reappointed for a new three-year term.
Esther M. Kepplinger: Currently serving as Director for Patent Operations at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Kepplinger served for five years as the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations at the USPTO. During her tenure, she assisted in the development of policy for the patent examining corps, played an active role in trilateral meetings and projects, and led several international negotiations working with other patent offices and the World Intellectual Property Organization to draft agreements, rules and standards. She has 36 years of experience in intellectual property protection and spent 32 years at the USPTO. Kepplinger has previously served as a member of the PPAC for a partial term, and is being reappointed for a new three-year term.
Wayne P. Sobon, Esq.: As Associate General Counsel and Director of Intellectual Property for Accenture, Sobon is responsible for the global management of Accenture’s intellectual property matters, including patent procurement, portfolio management, trademark prosecution, licensing, client negotiations and contract shaping, dispute resolutions and litigation, and related intellectual property issues.
The new and reappointed TPAC members are:
Anne H. Chasser: Now Associate Vice President for Intellectual Property at the University of Cincinnati, Chasser was appointed Assistant Commissioner for Trademarks of the USPTO by President Clinton in November 1999 and confirmed by the Senate. Following the enactment of the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999, she was appointed Commissioner for Trademarks in March 2000 and remained at the USPTO until September 2004. During her tenure as Commissioner for Trademarks, trademark electronic filing was introduced and increased to 75 percent of total filings. Chasser has recently co-authored a book entitled Brand Rewind: Connecting Branding, Creativity, and IP Strategy.
Deborah A. Hampton: Currently an Intellectual Property Manager at Limited Brands, Hampton manages all phases of domestic and international prosecution, maintenance and enforcement of global trademark, domain name, trade dress, and patent and copyright portfolios for Limited Brands. She chairs the International Trademark Association (INTA) Trademark Administrators Committee and has been a Member of the Board of Directors of INTA.
Maury M. Tepper, III, Esq.: As an Intellectual Property Attorney, Tepper’s work includes all aspects of the creation, registration, maintenance and enforcement of trademarks, copyrights and domain names. He was the former Director and Trademark Counsel for GlaxoSmithKline and is an active participant in INTA, where he serves as chair of INTA’s U.S. Legislation Subcommittee. Tepper has previously served as a member of the TPAC and on the Board of Directors of INTA.
Other current PPAC members include:
Marc Adler, founder, Marc Adler, LLC
Maureen Toohey, founding member, Toohey Law Group, LLC
Benjamin Borson, President, Borson Law Group, PC
Steven Miller, Vice President & General Counsel, The Proctor & Gamble Co
Damon C. Matteo, Vice President Intellectual Capital Management, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
Other current TPAC members include:
Makan Delrahim, shareholder, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP
Mary Boney Denison, founding partner, Manelli Denison & Selter, PLLC
Timothy Lockhart, member, Wolcox & Savage P.C.
John B. Farmer, founder, Leading Edge Law Group, PLC
Kathryn B. Park, senior counsel, General ElectricJames G. Conley, principal, Winnemac Consulting, LLC

USPTO Names Albert Tramposch Administrator for Policy and External Affairs
Washington - The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the appointment of Albert Tramposch as Administrator for Policy and External Affairs. In this role he will serve as a policy advisor to Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos, and will oversee the office’s work with Congress on major legislation to reform current patent law and practice, coordination and communication with intellectual property (IP) offices worldwide, and negotiation and implementation of international IP treaties.
Tramposch currently serves as Deputy Executive Director -- International and Regulatory, at the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), a 16,000-member Association of IP practitioners and owners in the United States. He will start in this new position on February 14, 2011.
"The Office of Policy and External Affairs plays a vital role in so many aspects of what we do here at the USPTO, from developing domestic and international IP policy to overseeing our international work and our engagement with Capitol Hill," said Kappos. "We are very fortunate to have someone with Al's experience and expertise leading these efforts at this critical time for the USPTO and the intellectual property system."
As Administrator for Policy and External Affairs, Tramposch will oversee five key functions: (1) administration and support for external affairs, which will include all domestic and international IP policy-related operations; (2) congressional and legislative engagement, as carried out by the Office of Governmental Affairs; (3) education and training, as carried out under the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA); (4) global IP leadership through administration of the IP Attaché Program; and (5) economic analysis, as carried out by the Chief Economist.Tramposch is former Director of Industrial Property Law at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, where he headed the WIPO team for the Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of the Patent Law Treaty in 2000, and was responsible, inter alia, for the Standing Committee on Trademarks, the Standing Committee on Patents, and the Advisory Committee on Enforcement. Tramposch is a registered patent attorney in the United States, and in addition to private practice of intellectual property law, he administered programs in IP at George Mason University School of Law and John Marshall Law School, and served as law clerk to the Honorable Pauline Newman, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Recently, he acted as consultant to the Presidency of the European Union on matters relating to intellectual property and global challenges.