Shifting Sands In The Global IP Community

Just as the world of international intellectual property law and policy is ever-changing, so are the faces within it. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a new deputy director in Silicon Valley veteran Michelle Lee, who has been acting as director. Many changes occurred at the US Trade Representative’s office, including the naming of a top tech industry lobbyist as deputy USTR, the return to Geneva of a key US figure at the WTO, and the defection of a top IP negotiator to the copyright industry.

Other developments included Canada’s Information & Privacy Commissioner tapping a new Privacy by Design (PbD) Ambassador in a growing program set up to address the growing and systemic effects of Information and Communication Technologies, and of large-scale networked data systems. And there are a number of new delegates in Geneva dealing with IP issues, and many changes on the NGO front, while slews of law firms continue to expand their IP practices to more effectively deal with the ever-changing patent and copyright law landscape.

Below you will find an updated list of the latest people news and IP moves across international organisations, national and regional governments, non-profit organisations, and the private sector.

GOVERNMENTS

Geneva has a number of new government delegates who deal with IP. They include:

Argentina: Maria Ines Rodrigues, counsellor (WTO, WIPO); Julio Cesar Mercado, counsellor (WHO)
Brazil: Rodrigo Mendes Araujo, first secretary (WTO, WIPO)
Chile: Marcela Paiva (WIPO), from the IP department of the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores in Santiago
Ecuador: Juan Carlos Castrillon, first secretary (WIPO) since 2013
Germany: Pamela Ville, (WIPO) since 2013
Israel: Tania Berg-Rafaeli, assistant deputy permanent representative (WTO, WIPO)
Mexico: Beatriz Hernandez, second secretary (WIPO); Hugo Romero, counsellor (WTO)
Morocco: Salah Eddine Taouis (WIPO), counsellor, arrived in 2013
Senegal: Magour Mbaye, first counsellor (WTO), arrival in 2013
South Africa: Pragashnie Adurthy, first secretary (WIPO)
South Korea: Kim Shi Yiung, first secretary (WIPO)

Europe

EPO

The European Patent Office (EPO) last September announced the arrival of new Chief Economist Theon van Dijk. The EPO’s Economics Unit provides economic insight into issues relating to patents, innovation and economic growth. Major areas of current interest of this unit include the economic impact of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court, economic aspects of introducing a grace period and economic aspects of patenting behaviour by technological sector.

European Union

The European Commission has appointed French mathematician Jean-Pierre Bourguignon as the next President of the European Research Council (ERC); he began 1 Jan. Bourguignon succeeds Helga Nowotny, who is professor emerita of social studies of science at ETH Zurich.

Separately, Desiree Miloshevic is now Board member, EU RALO ICANN, At-large, at the European Regional At-large Organisation at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

United States

Commerce Department – USPTO
Michelle K. Lee in December was named Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the UPTO, and is acting as the director until a new director is confirmed by the US Senate; she began her new job on 13 January. Since then, Lee, formerly director of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley satellite office, has served as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Commerce on both domestic and international intellectual property matters, and provides leadership and oversight of the day-to-day management of the policy, budget, and operations for an agency of almost 12,000 employees. Lee has been overseeing the USPTO as the agency takes steps to ensure that relevant prior art is more accessible to patent examiners, patent ownership transparency, and the expansion of crowdsourcing prior art, giving the public a bigger role in submitting relevant documents so examiners can make more thorough, informed judgments on patent applications.

The most recent USPTO chief, David Kappos, is now a partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP; he left government in February 2013, and his deputy, Teresa Stanek Rea, served in his stead until Lee was picked to serve as interim chief. At a recent IP law event, Kappos said the office needed a strong leader and hoped the Senate would confirm one soon.

In April, Sarah Harris took over as the new chief legal officer at USPTO. She was previously AOL’s senior vice president and deputy general counsel for IP. Bernard Knight, who held the position previously, departed the agency last summer to take a partner position at McDermott Will & Emery LLP. The USPTO general counsel is the top legal officer, overseeing the Office of the Solicitor and other legal functions.

Meanwhile, Kelly R. Welsh is the new Commerce general counsel. Welsh, who is former executive vice president and general counsel for Northern Trust, replaces Cameron Kerry – US Secretary of State John Kerry’s brother – who stepped down in late 2013 and is now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution focused on technology policy and international trade research. The Commerce general counsel provides legal and policy direction to the USPTO. Nathan Kelley is the new Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property Law and Solicitor at Commerce. Kelly defends the Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the USPTO and the agency in court proceedings relating to intellectual property issues.

NTIA
Jim McConnaughey retired from Commerce Department’s National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) as Chief Economist on 3 January after 24 years there, and ten years previous at the Federal Communications Commission. NTIA manages the US government relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Copyright Office
At the US Copyright Office, the Register of Copyrights, Maria A. Pallante, appointed Douglas Ament to position of Chief Information officer, and Elizabeth R. Scheffler to position of Director, Office of Public Records and Repositories.

USTR
At the Office of the US Trade Representative, former BSA | The Software Alliance CEO and Cloud4Growth Founder Robert W. Holleyman was tapped by President Obama to be the Deputy USTR, with the rank of Ambassador. Holleyman will play a large role in the Obama administration’s push to finalise pending trade deals with the Asia-Pacific and European countries. Holleyman needs to be confirmed by the US Senate. Several stakeholder groups are calling for the Senate not to confirm Holleyman, given his industry background and support of the Stop Online Piracy Act and companion bill, Protect IP Act.

Deputy US Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro stepped down from her position in February after four years of service. Sapiro was confirmed by the US Senate in December 2009 and served as acting USTR pending the confirmation of current USTR Michael Froman. Meanwhile, Christopher Wilson, former USTR for World Trade Organization and multilateral affairs, rejoined USTR as the new deputy chief of mission in Geneva. Stanford McCoy, assistant USTR for intellectual property and innovation, left the agency in early March.

There’s still more shakeup at the USTR. Carol Guthrie left her post as Senior Advisor to the USTR in the Public and Media Affairs office.

State Department
Former Washington Governor and US Ambassador to China Gary Locke planned to leave his diplomatic post for the private sector. There are rumours Locke would be sought out as a vice-presidential nominee for the Democrats in the 2016 presidential election. Locke says he is in talks to become an adviser or corporate board member with some US companies wanting to expand their business in China, as well as with Chinese companies wanting to expand their business into the US.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry has designated Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Catherine A. Novelli, as the Department’s Senior Coordinator for International Information Technology Diplomacy. Novelli will coordinate the US government’s diplomatic and foreign policy efforts related to international information technology issues and lead the work of the agency to advance internet issues.

In other agencies, Deborah Birx has been confirmed as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator of US Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally, leading the US Government’s international HIV efforts. Birx is a highly respected leader in the field of HIV and previously served as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Global HIV/AIDS.

Congress
US Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, in February announced that he will retire at the end of this congressional session. Waxman has represented the Los Angeles area in Washington for more than 40 years and has taken a great interest in IP-related legislation and issues during his tenure. He co-authored the historic Hatch-Waxman Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, the most important pharmaceutical patent law in history.

Canada

The office of Ann Cavoukian, Ontario, Canada’s Information & Privacy Commissioner, invited Raegan MacDonald, Access European Policy Manager, to serve as a Privacy by Design (PbD) Ambassador. MacDonald will join a group of privacy thought-leaders recognised by the Commissioner for their commitment and contribution to the field. Privacy by Design is a concept developed to address the growing and systemic effects of Information and Communication Technologies, and of large-scale networked data systems.

 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

WIPO

Francis Gurry was appointed by overwhelming majority for a second 6-year term as the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), amidst debate over a complaint about alleged misconduct.

United Nations

The UN General Assembly unanimously re-elected Achim Steiner for a third term as executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for a two-year term, beginning 15 June.

Hong Xue is now co-director at UNCITRAL-BNU Joint Certificate Program on International E-Commerce Law.

WTO

In March, the World Trade Organization noted the consensus on a slate of names to head up WTO bodies. Here are some of the people chosen for the following positions:

Fernando de Mateo (Mexico) – Dispute Settlement Body
Mariam Md Salleh (Malaysia) – Trade Policy Review Body
Joaquim Reiter (Sweden) – Council for Trade in Goods
Choi Seokyoung (Rep. of Korea) – Council for Trade in Services
Mothusi Palai (Botswana) – Council for TRIPS
Pierre Claver Ndayiragije (Burundi) – Committee on Trade and Development
Paivi Kairamo (Finland) – Committee on Trade and Environment
Francisco Pirez (Uruguay) – Committee on Regional Trade Agreements
Abdolazeez Al-Otaibi – (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) – Working Group on Trade, Debt and Finance

Other Organisations in Geneva

Tarek Kamel is now running the new ICANN office in Geneva. Kamel is an Egyptian expert in global Internet governance issues and is considered the father of the internet in Egypt. His appointment marks the first time someone from a developing country has taken the reins of a leading senior management role at ICANN. Since August 2012, Kamen has been a Senior Advisor to the ICANN president; prior to joining ICANN, he was a board member of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt from April 2011- July 2012.

Denis Broun resigned from his position as Executive Director of UNITAID in January. A search for the new Executive Director has been underway.

Kaitlin Mara left her position as communications manager for the Medicines Patent Pool after several years, in order to pursue some personal projects. Mara was also the former assistant editor at Intellectual Property Watch.

Jon Lidén joined the Stop TB Partnership in a dual role as the new Head of Strategy, Advocacy and Communications, and Project Coordinator in the development of the Global Plan to Stop TB 2016 – 2020. Lidén previously worked for WHO, where he led communications under Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland (1998 – 2003), and then for the Global Fund, where he was the Communications Director (2003 – 2012).

The GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership focused on saving lives and protecting public health by increasing access to immunisations in poor countries, in December made Natasha Bilimoria its new Director of US Strategy, leading the organisation’s effort to mobilise US support to fund childhood immunization in the world’s poorest countries. The GAVI Alliance also welcomed Andrew Thomson as Senior Country Officer, Country Support, Country Programmes, on a temporary basis.

NGOs & ACADEMIA

Valerie Belair-Gagnon is the new executive director of the Yale Information Society Project, beginning in June. Belair-Gagnon, a sociologist of media, has been a resident fellow at the Yale ISP. Her research focuses on emerging media, journalism, media law and policy, and media sociology.

Krista Cox, former the staff attorney/legal counsel at Knowledge Economy International, is now the director of public policy initiatives of the Association of Research Libraries.

Creative Commons welcomed eight new members to its board of directors in December: Creative Commons affiliates Renata Avila (Guatemala), Dorothy Gordon (Ghana), Paul Keller (Netherlands), and Jongsoo Yoon (South Korea); as well as Ben Adida, a director of engineering at Square who previously served as CC’s first technology lead; Christopher Thorne, a veteran technology entrepreneur and private equity investor; Microsoft intellectual property counsel Thomas C. Rubin, and New York University Law School professor Chris Sprigman.

Gene Kimmelman took over as president and CEO of Public Knowledge in January.After almost 30 years as a public interest advocate, Kimmelman joined the Department of Justice’s antitrust division as Chief Counsel. Since leaving the DOJ, Kimmelman has been serving as the Director of the Internet Freedom and Human Rights project at the New America Foundation.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) staff attorney Daniel Nazer became the new “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents.” Nazer succeeds former Senior Staff Attorney Julie Samuels and will lead EFF’s campaign to reform the patent system and smash patent trolls. Samuels left EFF to become the new executive director of Engine Advocacy, one of EFF’s key partners in defending innovation in the start-up sector.

Jeremy Malcolm left his position at Consumers International; he now works on global IP issues at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

Jaume Vidal joined the Right to Health Foundation as Policy and Advocacy Officer in Madrid, where he will continue to deal with issues related to access to medicines, innovation and global health.

Nikolaus Thumm is now Senior Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research, having left his post as economist at the EPO.

Susan Crawford has joined Harvard Law School as the John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property. Crawford is also a Professor at Cardozo Law School, and a contributor to Bloomberg View and Wired. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy during 2009, co-led the FCC transition team between the Bush and Obama administrations, and was a member of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology and Innovation.

Jacob S. Sherkow and Ari Ezra Waldman have been appointed to the IP faculty at New York Law School as associate professors, effective 1 July. Sherkow is a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, concentrating on biotechnology and the law with an emphasis on patent law and agency regulation, He previously clerked for Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis on the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Waldman will also serve as Director of NYLS’s Institute for Information Law and Policy (IILP), focusing on the law and sociology of Internet life, with particular emphasis on the inequalities and injustices that arise in unregulated digital spaces.

Karen Donfried has been elected president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF); she took over the post in April. Donfried previously served as the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House.

INDUSTRY

Former assistant US Trade Representative Stan McCoy has taken a new job with the Motion Picture Association office for Europe, Middle East and Africa as senior vice president and regional policy director. McCoy will provide strategic policy advice on copyright-related matters, focusing on “bringing more responsibility on the Internet while ensuring that copyright continues to respond to the opportunities and challenges of the digital world,” the MPAA said.

After three years at the Computer & Communications Industry Association and seven years working on internet policy issues, Matthias Langenegger is leaving the CCIA to go to law school. Nick Ashton-Hart, formerly CCIA’s Geneva Representative, left his position in April to relaunch the CCIA’s International Digital Economy Alliance (IDEA) as an independent Swiss Association.

Meredith Attwell Baker is the new president and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association as of 2 June. Baker, a veteran telecommunications executive and former commissioner of the FCC, will replace Steve Largent, 59, who announced his retirement last October. Largent has served as President and CEO since November 2003.

U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) President Ron Somers resigned in April to start a strategic consulting practice. USIBC Executive Vice President and Senior Director Diane Farrell will serve as Acting President during the search for a replacement.Anand Mahindra, Chairman & Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra; Ellen Lord, President & CEO, Textron Systems; and Banmali Agrawala, President & CEO, South Asia, General Electric were also named to the USIBC board.

And Bret Fausett is now General Counsel at Uniregistry.

LAW OFFICES

Luis Villarroel, a former negotiator at WIPO who was an IP advisor for the Chilean Ministry of Education and is considered a leader on access to knowledge issues, is now a partner at innovarte legal services.

National law firm Quarles & Brady has started an innovative clinic that will allow students to act as junior attorneys representing startup companies. The IP clinic will advise startup clients on how to protect their intellectual property, obtain venture funding and commercialise their innovations. Quarles also added Daniel G. Radler to its executive committee; his legal practice focuses on IP, with emphasis on patent procurement and licensing. Meeanwhile, John R Linzer has joined the firm’s Chicago office as an associate in the Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Loeb & Loeb LLP partner Douglas N. Masters, one of the founding partners of the firm’s Chicago office, has been named Chicago Office Head.

Leason Ellis LLP welcomes two new attorneys to its patent practice – Amy Gallup Klann as counsel, and Lauren Sobel as associate.

Greenberg Traurig added Weil Gotshal senior patent litigators Kevin Kudlac and Amber Lee Hagy as shareholders and attorney Rene Anthony Treviño as of counsel. Last December, Greenberg Traurig added three new shareholders to the Intellectual Property & Technology Practice.

Five lawyers and two paralegals from Ryndak & Suri LLP have joined Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP’s Intellectual Property practice: Ryndak & Suri founder James D. Ryndak, partners Mark K. Suri and Eric H. Weimers, associates Jeffrey S. Dixon and Roger M. Masson, and paralegals Kathy Burger and Donna Bacso.

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP promoted Fabien Caruzzo, James Hannah, Tzvi Rokeach and Stephen D. Zide to partner. Hannah is a patent litigator for high-tech companies and regularly provides IP counselling for clients.

Dykema national law firm has added experienced patent and commercial litigation trial attorney Aaron Charfoos to its intellectual property group and litigation department in the Chicago office.

Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP recruited an international intellectual property group to join its expanding DC office. Juan Carlos Marquez joined as an Of Counsel in the IP Practice and will be joined by an IP Practice Manager and a Senior IP Assistant. He will work closely with the firm’s Intellectual Property Litigation and Asia practices.

Patchen Haggerty joined the Seattle office of Perkins Coie as a partner in the firm’s Trademark & Copyright practice, while a team led by

Jami Gekas has joined Foley & Lardner’s Property Litigation Practice as a partner in its Chicago office. Gekas is experienced in advertising, marketing, copyright and trademark issues.

BakerHostetler’s Chicago office continues to add IP expertise: a five-lawyer group has joined, including three new partners: litigation partner Craig White, IP partners John Letchinger and Douglas Rupert, litigation counsel Matt Caccamo and IP associate Derek Campbell. Alan Friel has also joined the privacy and data protection practice in the Los Angeles office.

David Postolski has joined Gearhart Law, a leading New Jersey-based IP firm specialising in patent and trademark law. Postolski brings 20 years of experience in numerous practice areas including patent prosecution and counselling, trademarks and copyrights, healthcare law and life sciences.

First-chair trial patent lawyers Lisa Barons Pensabene, Marc Pensabene, and Filko Prugo joined the Intellectual Property and Technology Practice of O’Melveny & Myers LLP.

Joshua P. Smith and Jori B. Krischke joined Quarles & Brady’s Intellectual Property Group in Chicago, while Jeremy Elman has joined DLA Piper’s Intellectual Property and Technology practice and Patent Litigation group as a partner in the firm’s Miami office.