A well-liked and influential IP policymaker in Geneva will head Chile’s national IP office, a US lawyer responsible for perhaps the world’s biggest industry patent portfolio will head the US IP office, and a fixture in the Geneva international trade negotiating and lobbying community is heading home to Canada.

Maximiliano Santa Cruz has been named director of the Chilean National Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI), making him head of the country’s IP office based in Santiago. Santa Cruz is a key adviser on IP issues in the Chilean mission to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and chair of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents.

Over the past five years, he participated actively in the negotiations of the WIPO Development Agenda, particularly advancing Chile’s proposals on the appraisal of the public domain and forwarding Chile’s proposals on exceptions and limitations in WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright. He also played an active role in the negotiations of the WHO’s Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and IP.

Outgoing Director Cristóbal Acevedo said in a statement that Santa Cruz’s appointment is “excellent news for INAPI. Maximiliano is a great person and an extraordinary professional, with great knowledge of the topic of intellectual property.” Santa Cruz worked closely with officials during the establishment of INAPI, which was inaugurated in January 2009, replacing the Department of Industrial Property.

Santa Cruz is expected to take over the post by October and will serve in the office for three years with possible renewal.

David J. Kappos has been nominated Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, which is the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Kappos is currently the vice president and assistant general council for intellectual property law at IBM Corporation in New York, where he manages their patent and trademark portfolios and handles licensing of IBM’s IP.

He is also on the board of directors for the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and the Intellectual Property Owners Association, both organisations dedicated to protecting the rights of IP owners. The current acting director is John Doll. Kappos’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate.

Meanwhile, the US Senate Commerce Committee has approved nominees Julius Genachowski and Robert McDowell as, respectively, chairman and commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. The nominees must now be confirmed by the full Senate.

Sabine Kopp is newly coordinating the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) secretariat at the World Health Organization, according to sources. She has been a member of the Medicines Quality and Assurance Programme on Quality Assurance and Safety at the WHO. Sabine Kopp assists WHO’s Assistant Director-General, Carissa Etienne, the IMPACT Chair. Valerio Reggi, the group’s former executive secretary, left shortly before the May World Health Assembly. [Editor's note: this entry has been updated].

John Weekes, senior international trade policy advisor at law firm Sidley Austin’s Geneva office, is leaving in July to move back to Canada to take up the position as a senior international trade policy adviser to the firm. Weekes, a former Canadian negotiator, has nearly four decades of experience in trade policy and international negotiations, and has recently focussed on advising businesses in the opportunities afforded by the WTO Doha Development Agenda.

White & Case, an international law firm, has announced that its Geneva office – which had previously been a subsidiary office – will become a full limited liability partnership (LLP) office. The move “strengthens” the office and opens the way for future growth, it said. The Geneva office, which has five lawyers and one non-lawyer, will continue to be led by Executive Partner Brendan McGivern. The office specialises in World Trade Organization rules and dispute settlement.

And the deadline to apply to lead WIPO’s new Global Challenges Division is set to expire on Friday, with the chosen candidate meant to start “as soon as possible” from now. A WIPO conference on 13-14 July is seen as a key brainstorming session for what issues this new department will focus on.

Robinson Esalimba Joins IP-Watch for the Summer

Robinson Esalimba has joined Intellectual Property Watch for an internship this summer. Esalimba recently graduated from Lund University in Sweden with a masters degree in law (LLM) specialising in intellectual property and also holds a bachelors degree in law (LLB) from Nairobi University in Kenya. Robinson has previously worked for seven years in the human rights and development fields in Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and before going to Sweden completed a two-year stint with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malawi as a project manager helping the Malawi government to set up a refugee status determination system.

Robinson has a keen interest in understanding the influence of human rights in intellectual property policymaking and in particular how decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on intellectual property cases would affect IP policymaking in Geneva. His day-to-day tasks include assisting the permanent staff with ongoing research, tracking IP policy developments, outreach projects, attending events and networking, and contributing to the monthly and online editions. He also happens to be an avid student of salsa and capoeira which suits him fine as it helps to burn all the calories he gets from the tonnes of salted peanuts that he continually munches at his desk. Robinson also tries to read everything there is to be read on Obama.