Comings And Goings In The International IP Community Year To Date 06/09/2017 by Catherine Saez and William New, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Heading into the final stretch of the year, it is a good time to catch up on all of the staff changes that have occurred in governments, industry, law firms and nongovernmental organisations related to the IP community in Geneva. Here is a rundown of some of top moves made by people since the start of the year. Governments (August) IP Delegates in Geneva – Intellectual Property Watch has fully updated its list of delegates in Geneva who work on IP related issues at several key institutions. The updated list, featuring more than 50 new names along with the existing ones, is available here. (August) Judge Richard A. Posner, one of the leading appellate judges and legal writers in the US, retired suddenly after more than three decades with the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. (August) On 25 August, US President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Andrei Iancu to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. Iancu has been a Managing Partner at Irell & Manella LLP. (August) Trump also nominated Margaret Weichert of Georgia to be Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget. Weichert is currently Senior Advisor at the Office of Management and Budget. She is a veteran business executive who has served as a Principal at Ernst & Young. (August) Trump also made two controversial nominations related to science. He nominated Sam Clovis to be chief scientist of the US Agriculture Department, despite not being a scientist. He is a conservative talk show host and was a campaign manager for Trump, and is sceptical of climate change concerns. Another climate change denier and industry promoter, Jim Bridenstine, a conservative Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma, was nominated to head the NASA space program, also with no science background. He would be the first elected official to lead the space agency. (July) Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-MA) announced that Katherine Tai was named Democratic Chief Trade Counsel for the committee, taking over for Jason Kearns, who had served in the post since 2012. Tai previously served as Trade Counsel on the committee, and at the Office of the US Trade Representative. (June) Vishal Amin was nominated in June to the role of While House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The full Senate approved this nomination on 3 August. Amin is an Indian-American national and prior to his nomination was Senior Counsel on the House Judiciary Committee. (June) Following the resignation of Michelle Lee, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross named USPTO Associate Solicitor Joseph Matal to perform the functions and duties of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, effective 7 June. (May) Robert Lighthizer was sworn as US Trade Representative. Lighthizer was a Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Before that he served as Deputy USTR for President Ronald Reagan. (June) Lighthizer announced senior staff. Jamieson Greer was named Chief of Staff. Prior to joining USTR Greer was Of Counsel in the International Trade and National Security practice group at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Payne Griffin became Deputy Chief of Staff. Griffin worked on Capitol Hill, advising then-Senator Jeff Sessions on trade policy. Pamela Marcus was named Deputy Chief of Staff – Operations. Marcus was Manager of the International Trade Group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Stephen Vaughn became General Counsel. Vaughn was a Partner in the International Trade Group at King & Spalding LLP. Timothy Reif was named Senior Advisor. Reif is serving as Senior Advisor to the USTR under the new administration. Christopher Jackson became Assistant USTR for Congressional Affairs. Jackson served as Counsel to then-Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Cameron Bishop as Deputy Assistant USTR for Congressional Affairs. Bishop worked in the US House of Representatives and recently served as Legislative Director for Congressman Austin Scott. Emily Davis was named Deputy Assistant USTR for Public & Media Affairs. Davis worked as the Communications Director of the American Action Network/Congressional Leadership Fund. (May) Following his nomination by US President Donald Trump in May to the post of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information (head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NTIA), David Redl was confirmed by the US Congress in August. Redl was Chief Counsel at the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. (May) Mariya Gabriel was appointed in July as European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Gabriel is a Bulgarian national and has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009. Her appointment follows the resignation of Kristalina Georgieva who joined the World Bank. Gabriel’s appointment applies for the remainder of the current term of office of the Commission, which ends on 31 October 2019. (May) US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the creation of an Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). (April) Rajiv Kumar Chander was appointed India’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Offices in Geneva in April. At that time, he was Consul General of India in Vancouver, Canada. (February) Among the European Commission appointments at the beginning of 2017, Maria Martin-Prat was appointed Director for Services and Investment, Intellectual Property and Public Procurement in the Department for Trade (DG TRADE). Martin-Prat is a Spanish national, and has worked in the Commission since 1995. She previously headed the unit in charge of copyright at the EU Directorate-General for Communications, Networks, Content and Technology. (Jan) Early this year the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced new Patent and Trademark Advisory Committee Members for the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) and the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC). Each committee has nine voting members, and each member serves a three-year term. New PPAC members include Marylee Jenkins, Chair, Partner at Arent Fox, LPP; Jeffrey Sear, Associate General Counsel and Chief Patent Counsel for Columbia University; and Bernard Knight, Jr., Partner at McDermott Will & Emery. New TPAC members include William Barber, Vice Chair, member of Pirkey Barber PLLC; Brian Winterfeldt, Partner and Co-Head of the Global Brand Management & Internet Practice at Mayer Brown LLP; and Ilene Tannen, former Partner and current Counsel at Jones Day. (Jan) Regan Smith was appointed Deputy General Counsel of the US Copyright Office at the end of 2016. International Organisations (September) Judit Rius Sanjuan joined the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in New York as senior consultant, working on innovation and access to health technologies. She is part of the HIV, Health and Development team within the UNDP Bureau for Policy and Programme Support. Rius previously was the head of the US Access Campaign at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) in New York for the past 7 years. (August) Dominique Hyde will join the World Health Organization as Director, Strategic Engagement and Government Relations starting in September. She comes from UNICEF, where she was deputy director of the Public Partnerships Division. (Jan-August) The World Trade Organization Appellate Body welcomed two new members at the beginning of the year: Hong Zhao of China and Hyun Chong Kim of Korea. The WTO Appellate Body has seven members. Zhao is Vice President of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, and former Minister Counsellor in charge of legal affairs at China’s mission to the WTO. Kim is a university Professor, and former Senior Lawyer in the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Division. But then in August, the WTO said Kim resigned from the post as he expects to be appointed as minister in the Korean government shortly. The resignation has immediate effect. However, efforts to find consensus on the procedures for selecting two new Appellate Body members remained in vain at the end of August. Two new Appellate Body members need to be replaced: Ricardo Ramírez Hernández whose mandate expired on 30 June 2017, and Peter Van den Bossche whose second four-year term will expire on 11 December 2017. Some delegations support one single selection process to fill both positions at the same time, while, according to the WTO, two delegations expressed a preference for two independent processes. WTO members were unable to reach agreement on the launch of the proceedings to replace those Appellate Body members during a DSB meeting on 31 August, according to a Geneva trade official. Further consultations are expected to take place. (July) UN Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Isabelle Durant, a Belgium national, to the post of Deputy Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in July. Durant is taking after Joakim Reiter, from Sweden. Prior to her nomination, Durant was a member of the Parliament of Brussels-Capital Region, and also served formerly as Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium. Also in July, UNCTAD Secretary General Mukhisa Kituyi’s mandate was extended for a further four years. Kituyi is a Kenya national, and prior to joining UNCTAD was Chief Executive of the Kenya Institute of Governance, and Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. (July) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair of the Gavi Alliance Board, and Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, were both been reappointed in July. The Gavi Board also appointed Gunilla Carlsson, former Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation, as the new Vice-Chair of the Board. She succeeds Flavia Bustreo, World Health Organization Assistant Director-General for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health. (June) For his second term starting on 1 September, World Trade Organization Director General Roberto Azevêdo confirmed the appointment of the Deputy Directors General who will serve with him during this term. Serving Deputy Directors General Yonov Frederick Agah of Nigeria, Karl Brauner of Germany and Yi Xiaozhun of China have been reappointed to serve a further four-year term. Amb. Alan Wolff of the US joined the team. Wolff is Senior Counsel at the global law firm Dentons. He replaced David Shark, who served since 2013. (June) The European Patent Office (EPO) unveiled the name of the winners of its European Inventor Award 2017 in June. Among the winners, in the “Non-EPO countries” category, were US Engineers James Fujimoto and Eric Swanson, and German Physicist Robert Huber for their development of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT is the first technology to deliver real-time images of human tissue at microscopic clarity without the need for invasive probing or surgical biopsies. It has become a world standard. (May) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (“Tedros”) of Ethiopia was elected as the Director General of the UN World Health Organization, the first African to hold the post. (May) The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) appointed Noel Curran of Ireland to become its new Director General. Curran is former Director General, Managing Director of Television and Editor of Current Affairs of RTÉ, Ireland’s national television and radio broadcaster. He succeeds Ingrid Deltenre. Deltenre resigned in February to focus her attention on her Board responsibilities at Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Givaudan and Deutsche Post/DHL. (May) Ovais Sarmad of India has been appointed Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by UN Secretary General António Guterres. Sarmad, who served as Chief of Staff to the Director General of the International Organization for Migration, succeeds Richard Kinley of Canada. (May) The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria selected Aida Kurtović as its new Chair. She served as Vice-Chair for the past two years. Kurtović is Executive Director of Partnerships in Health, in Sarajevo. The Board also selected Ambassador John Simon as incoming Vice-Chair. He is currently founder and managing partner of Total Impact Capital in the US. (April) Carlos Passarelli, Senior Expert Treatment, Country Programme Gap Analysis at UNAIDS, has become UNAIDS Country Director in Argentina. (April) The UN Development Programme has a new head since June. Achim Steiner of Germany was appointed in April to succeed Helen Clark. Steiner is nominated for a four-year term. He previously served several roles across the UN, including as UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme. (This year) Former Ambassador, Permanent Observer at the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Ridha Bouabid is now the WIPO Representative of the Director General on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. (March) Jun Koide, Technical/Regional Officer (Asia) for the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) left at the end of his contract at the end of March to resume his work at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Government of Japan. He is replaced by Tomochika Motomura, also a national of Japan. Motomura’s responsibilities include the delivery of UPOV’s programme of assistance in Asia. (March) The UN Secretary General and the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization appointed David Beasley of the US as Executive Director of the World Food Programme at the end of March. In January former Executive Director Ertharin Cousin, also from the US, had told staff she would not seek a second five-year term. Private Sector/NGOs/Academia (September) The Consumer Technology Association announced the hire of Jennifer Taylor as Vice President of US Jobs. Taylor will drive initiatives that address the US tech industry’s critical shortage of qualified, skilled tech workers, CTA said. (September) APAP changed its name to the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. The group is known for hosting a large annual conference in New York. The group has had several name changes in its 60 year history, reflecting changing times. The name prior to this change was the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (also APAP). (August) Marie-Paule Kieny was named the new Chair of the Board of Directors of Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi). Kieny was an Assistant Director General at the World Health Organization, most recently (until July) heading WHO’s Health Systems and Innovation cluster. Prof. Marcel Tanner is stepping down as Chair after 10 years Tanner is Professor and Chair of Epidemiology and Medical Parasitology at the University of Basel and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The DNDi Board of Directors also welcomed a new member, Suerie Moon, Director of Research at the Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva and adjunct Lecturer on Global Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and former Study Director of the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola. (August) Marianela López-Galdos joined the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) Washington office as Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy. She arrives from the George Washington University Competition Law Center as the Director of Research Projects in Comparative Competition Law Policy. Isabelle Styslinger also joined the DC team as Research Analyst. CCIA in DC also recently hired Joshua Landau from WilmerHale as its patent counsel. Also at CCIA, Christian Borggreen, who has served as Director of International Policy for CCIA’s Brussels office since 2014, is being promoted to Vice President and the new Head of Office for CCIA Europe. Current Vice President James Waterworth is moving to work for a CCIA member company. Borggreen previously served as Policy Advisor to the US Mission to the EU. Jakob Kucharczyk, who has served as CCIA’s Brussels director since 2010, will become Vice President for Competition Policy. And CCIA Europe hired Victoria Chatzi as Policy Assistant. Before joining CCIA, she worked in the Permanent Representation of Greece to the EU. (August) The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that whistleblower and activist Chelsea Manning, Techdirt editor and open internet advocate Mike Masnick, and IFEX executive director and global freedom of expression defender Annie Game are the distinguished winners of the 2017 Pioneer Awards, which recognize leaders who are extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier (July) The Publishers Association announced in July that William Bowes would be its new General Counsel and Director of Policy. Bowes joins from Cambridge University Press, where he has been General Counsel and Company Secretary. (July) eLife joined a consortium of organisations committed to supporting Substance, a JavaScript library of tools for web-based content editing. Substance is an open-source project which first started in 2010. It provides the building blocks for realising custom text editors and web-based publishing systems that are critical in establishing an open-source ecosystem for knowledge creation and dissemination. (July) Anaqua, Inc., a leading provider of intellectual property management and analytics solutions, merged with Lecorpio, a leading developer of end-to-end IP management software. The newly combined company will focus on powering corporations and law firms with the tools to streamline operations, gain insight, and maximize the value of IP assets. (July) José Luis Londoño Fernández was appointed International Trademark Association (INTA) Chief Representative Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean. INTA opened its Latin American and the Caribbean Representative Office in Santiago, Chile, in May. (June) John Blewett was appointed Director of Communications for IFPI, the London-based music industry association. He joined IFPI in 2016 from communications consultancy Luther Pendragon. (June) IFPI also announced Lodovico Benvenuti as Director of its European Office. Lodovico previously represented Mediaset in Brussels. (June) Clemens Martin Auer was elected President of the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) in June. He is Director General at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs and is responsible for health systems and coordination. (June) The International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA) announced that Ingrid Schwarzenberger is the new Chair of the IGBA Biosimilars Committee. Schwarzenberger is Head Global Regulatory Affairs at Sandoz Biopharmaceutical. (May) Phil Fearnley joined CPA Global as Chief Technology Officer. Fearnley is leading CPA Global’s development of breakthrough technology to redefine the future of IP. He was former Digital Director for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Toni Nijm, Chief Innovation & Technology Officer, transitioned to the role of Chief Product & Strategy Officer, leading product innovation and future strategy. (May) The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) announced in May that Fumie Griego joined IFPMA as Assistant Director General for strategic planning, policy, and research. Griego is a former PhRMA and Merck KGaA executive. (May) The Licensing Executives Society (US and Canada) nominated Robert Held as President and Chair-Elect of the Board. If elected, his one-year term would start at the 2018 LES Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Held is currently Regional Vice President for Policy, Standards, International & Strategic Planning on the LES Board of Directors. (April) Mitch Glazier, Senior Executive Vice President of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is expected to ascend to the role of Chairman and CEO in January 2019 as current Chairman and CEO, Cary Sherman will retire from the organisation at the end of 2018. (April) The Coalition of Services Industries (CSI) said it added three new senior staff. Shantell Isaac joins CSI as Vice President, Hera Abbasi as Director of Congressional Affairs, and Jay Chittooran as a Director of Services and Digital Trade. Isaac was previously part of the international policy team at the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), Abbasi previously served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, and Chittooran comes from Third Way. (April) Karen Taylor was appointed new General Manager of Asia Pacific for Anaqua, and based in Hong Kong. Taylor was Chair of Justice Centre Hong Kong in a volunteer capacity and previously served as an Executive Director with LexisNexis Asia and as a Director with Thomson Reuters. (April) Philip Bland-Ward has been appointed Chief Scientific Officer at Crescendo Biologics Ltd. Bland-Ward joins Crescendo from Kymab and previously held senior positions at Cambridge Antibody Technology and PanGenetics, and a co-founder of Nascient. (March) Dan Pescod left the Royal National Institute of Blind People at the end of March. Pescod was very involved in the discussions leading to the World Intellectual Property Organization Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. (March) IP scholar Ruth Okediji joined Harvard Law School faculty in July as a tenured Professor of law. She will also serve on the board of directors of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. She was former William L. Prosser Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. Okediji is a member of the Board of Intellectual Property Watch. (Feb) The new Director General of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) is Nathalie Moll, appointed to start in April. Moll was Secretary General of the European Association for Bioindustries (EuropaBio). (Jan) Joseph Ferretti was elected President of the International Trademark Association (INTA), and Chair of its Board of Directors for 2017. Ferretti is Vice-President & Chief Counsel, Global Trademarks of PepsiCo Inc. (Jan) Els Torreele was named Executive Director of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign in Geneva. She previously served as Director of the Access to Medicines and Innovation program at the Open Society Foundations in New York. Law Offices (August) Former US International Trade Commission (ITC) Administrative Law Judge Theodore R. Essex joined Hogan Lovells’ Intellectual Property Litigation practice in Washington, DC. Judge Essex “has been at the forefront of intellectual property law issues for ten years, handling scores of Sec. 337 proceedings involving the world’s most valuable and renowned companies,” the company said. (August) The Asian arm of European intellectual property firm Awapatent, AWA Asia, continued its expansion, with two senior hires, Xiaofan Chen (Partner) and Yuanyuan Chu (Senior Patent Attorney) in Beijing. (August) Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP announced the launch of its Autonomous Vehicle industry group, to be co-chaired by new arrival Steve Wernikoff, based in Detroit, former Enforcement Director in the Office of Technology Research and Investigation at the US Federal Trade Commission. Group Co-Chair will be Tom Appledorn, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group and co-leader of the Technology Transactions Practice. (August) Mintz Levin continued to expand its New York presence with the addition of Sean Grygiel, who joins as a Member in the Intellectual Property practice. He is the fifth high-profile Member to join the office this year. Grygiel was previously a partner with Perkins Coie LLP. (August) John Guaragna was named co-managing partner of DLA Piper’s Austin office. He joins John Gilluly, who currently serves as managing partner for the firm’s Texas offices. Guaragna focuses his legal practice on technology and intellectual property counselling and litigation. (August) BakerHostetler added a patent litigation team to its Chicago office. Leif Sigmond, Michael Gannon and Jennifer Kurcz have joined the Intellectual Property practice as partners from McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff. (August) BakerHostetler also added life sciences patent attorney Beverly Lyman to its Intellectual Property practice. Lyman will be a member of the Biotechnology, Chemical and Pharmaceutical team, and is resident in the Cincinnati and Atlanta offices. She was previously at Thompson Hine. (July) BakerHostetler further announced that Steven Spears joined as Partner and IP Litigator in its Houston Office. Spears comes from McDermott Will & Emery. (July) And Inge Larish joined BakerHostetler as Partner in the Intellectual Property practice and patent litigation team in the Seattle office. She comes from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. (July) Matthew Poppe joined Rimon as Partner in its Palo Alto, California office. Prior to joining Rimon, Poppe was a Partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. (July) Clyde & Co announced that Elliot Papageorgiou was appointed as Partner in its Shanghai office. Papageorgiou joins from Rouse. (July) Longtime Morrison & Foerster partner and patent litigator Rachel Krevans passed away at the age of 60, the firm announced. Rachel had a long list of groundbreaking IP litigation accomplishments and is perhaps best known for serving as co-lead counsel in a high-profile smartphone case, securing a jury verdict of more than $1 billion in 2012, the firm said. Her other landmark trials included wins for EchoStar, Bayer, Sandoz and most recently in May she delivered a win for UC Davis in a unanimous jury decision in the Northern District of California. (June) Andrea Brewster, former President of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys has received the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to intellectual property in June. Brewster created and launched a cross-profession diversity task-force “IP Inclusive” in 2015. (May) Morrison & Foerster announced in May that six intellectual property trial lawyers joined the firm from Wilson Sonsini. The group includes Partners Stefani Shanberg and Jennifer Schmidt, Counsel Robin Brewer and three associates. (May) Hogan Lovells welcomed Partners Richard Climan, Keith Flaum, Jane Ross, and IP and Technology Transactions partner John Brockland. They come from Weil, Gotshal & Manges. (May) Jonathan Harris joined Blank Rome as Partner and David Wilson as Of Counsel in the Intellectual Property and Technology group in Houston. Both are former electrical engineers, and joined Blank Rome from intellectual property boutique Conley Rose PC. (May) Michael Best & Friedrich LLP welcomed several partners in recent months. In May Mircea Tipescu joined the firm’s Chicago office as a Partner in the Intellectual Property Group. Tipescu was adjunct professor of patent law at The John Marshall Law School. The same month, the firm welcomed Andrew Eisenberg as Partner in the Intellectual Property and Corporate Practice Groups in Austin, Texas. Eisenberg was previously with Lee & Hayes. Also in May, Peter Huh joined the firm’s Chicago office as a products liability Partner in the Litigation Practice Group. In August, the firm also welcomed James Fieweger to the firm’s Litigation Practice Group as a Partner in Chicago. Fieweger was a founding partner of law firm Falkenberg Fieweger & Ives. (April) Kevin Nelson joined Schiff Hardin as a Partner in Chicago, in the Intellectual Property Group. He is a member of the firm’s Pharmaceuticals and Biologics Patent Team. Nelson was formerly a Partner in the Chicago office of Duane Morris LLP. (April) Robert Weiss, Partner in the Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions practice at Chicago-based firm Neal Gerber & Eisenberg has been elected President of the International Technology Law Association. (April) Marc Kaufman joined Rimon as Partner. He is an intellectual property and Fintech attorney, and joins from Reed Smith. Earlier Rimon annonced that Letao Qin joined as Partner. Qin is an intellectual property attorney and comes from Industrial heat, a start-up company engaged in nuclear energy research and development where she served as in-house counsel. (April) Simeon Papacostas joined Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP as a Partner in its Chicago office. He joins the Intellectual Property Department as well as the Intellectual Property Litigation and Life Science Litigation practice groups. Papacostas was previously a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis. (April) William Fisher joined DLA Piper as Partner and was appointed Head of Patent Practice in China. Prior to joining DLA Piper, Fisher was a Partner at an international law firm in Shanghai. (April) Partner Gina Durham has been named Chair of DLA Piper Trademark, Copyright & Media practice in California. Durham is a founding member of the firm’s Social Media practice. (April) Christopher Broderick joined Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP as Partner in the intellectual property practice. He joins from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. (April) Dentons launched its Intellectual Property and Technology practice in Milan, Italy in April with the recruitment of Partner Giovanni Francesco Casucci and a team of five. Casucci and his team come from Bardehle Pagenberg. The team includes Senior Associates Matteo Casucci, Gianluigi Muscas and Serena Tavolaro as well as associate Serena Spadavecchia and trainee Sara Massalongo. (Jan) Michael Best announced early this year that Brian Mangum has joined its Austin office as a Senior Counsel in the firm’s IP Practice Group. Prior to joining the firm, Mangum served as senior patent and contract counsel to an international battery and green energy company. (Jan) Rimon Law announced that Marc Kaufman joined as a Partner in the firm’s Washington DC office early this year. Kaufman comes from Reed Smith, where he was a Partner and served as co-leader for the firm’s FinTech team. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch.William New may be reached at wnew@ip-watch.ch."Comings And Goings In The International IP Community Year To Date" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.