New WIPO Group B Coordinator; MPP Adds Members To Board

October saw a flurry of changes in law offices in the United States. In Geneva, the coordination for Group B developed countries at the World Intellectual Property Organization changed hands, and the Medicines Patent Pool added four members to its Governance Board.

Geneva Delegates

Kunihiko Fushimi, first secretary, mission of Japan, who covered WIPO is leaving at the end of November. He is going back to his home ministry at the Japan Patent Office. Fushimi has also been the coordinator for Group B developed countries at WIPO for the last two years. Traditionally, the tenure for coordinating country groups is one year. The coordinator role starts after each WIPO General Assembly until the next.

Paraskevi Nakiou, attaché at the mission of Greece, has become the new Group B coordinator at WIPO. According to a source, for Group B (which consists of many European countries plus others such as the US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia) it is tradition that a coordinator from a non-European Union member is followed by a coordinator from one of the EU members.

International Organisations

At the end of October, the Medicines Patent Pool announced four new members on its Governance Board. They are: Claudia Chamas, senior researcher at Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz); Michel Manon, former director at Bristol-Myers Squibb; Brian Tempest, former chief executive officer at Ranbaxy; and Jayashree Watal, counsellor at the Intellectual Property Division of the World Trade Organization. They join five other members of the board. The new Governance Board was expected to meet at the end of October. MPP, which is a voluntary licensing mechanism, announced in November that it will expand its mandate beyond HIV/AIDS to include tuberculosis and hepatitis C treatment.

Governments

James Billington, the United States Librarian of Congress, retired on 30 September. Billington was the 13^th Librarian of Congress and had served for 28 years. Deputy Librarian of Congress David Mao is serving as Acting Librarian of Congress until a presidential appointment is made and confirmed by the Senate. The US Copyright Office falls under the Library of Congress.

Private Sector

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) announced its 2015-2016 Board of Directors at its annual meeting from 22-24 October. AIPLA’s new president is Denise DeFranco, a partner with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner. DeFranco will also serve as the chair of the Executive Committee.

AIPLA is governed by a 19-person Board of Directors comprised of officers and board members. Each year, four new board members are elected to serve a 3-year term, according to AIPLA.

The AIPLA officers for 2015-2016 are:

• President-Elect: Mark Whitaker, Baker Botts, L.L.P., Washington, DC
• First Vice President: Myra McCormack, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ
• Second Vice President: Sheldon Klein, Gray Plant Mooty, Washington, DC
• Immediate Past President: Sharon Israel, Mayer Brown LLP, Houston, TX
• Secretary: David Ruschke, Medtronic CSH, Santa Rosa, CA
• Treasurer: John Hornickel, PolyOne Corporation, Avon Lake, OH

Newly Elected Members of the Board of Directors:

• Gregory Allen, 3M Innovative Properties Company, St. Paul, MN
• Monica Barone, Qualcomm Incorporated, San Diego, CA
• James Hallenbeck, Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A., Minneapolis, MN
• Thomas Moga, LeClairRyan, Dearborn, MI

Law Offices

Jeffrey Whittle, an IP partner for Hogan Lovells, US, was elected as president of the Licensing Executives Society (US and Canada) at the end of October. Whittle is expected to strengthen the society’s role in the IP and licensing community.

Quarles & Brady announced two newly created section chair roles and new leaders for several practice groups in October. Jeff Peelen and Daniel Radler are assuming the newly created positions of section chair. Both currently practice at Quarles & Brady. In addition, Jack Cook has been named the national chair of the Intellectual Property Practice Group, Elizabeth Orelup has been named the national chair of the Business Law Practice Group, and Rebecca Speckhard has been named the national chair of the Public Finance Practice Group.

Quarles & Brady promoted twelve associates to the status of partners effective on 1 October. The new partners are in the firm’s Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and Tampa offices. They are: Daniel Ark, Nicole Bashor, Jonathan Hackbarth, Brian Hartstein, Ryan Lovitz, Patrick Murphy, Lauren Raines, Rowan Smith, Martha Jahn Snyder, Valerie Vidal, Cathleen Yu, and Marian Zapata-Rossa.

Ropes & Gray announced that David Hennes and Gregg Weiner have joined the firm as business & securities litigation partners in New York. Both were previously partners with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Also coming from the same firm, John Sorkin, joined the Ropes & Gray mergers & acquisitions practice in New York.

In the past 18 months, Ropes & Gray also welcomed in New York partners Robert Rice and Marc Berger, as well as corporate partner Joanne De Silva. Rice was former chief counsel to US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White. Berger was former chief of the Securities and Commodities Task Force at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District New York.

And in early October, Ropes & Gray announced that Joanna Bergmann re-joined the firm’s corporate health care practice group as counsel in the New York office. Bergmann comes from the Office of the General Counsel, US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Division, National Institutes of Health branch. She served as a senior attorney and chief counsel to the National Cancer Institute. She was a corporate associate at Ropes & Gray from 2005 to 2012.

Allen Sokal, patent infringement and appellate litigation attorney, has joined BakerHostetler’s Intellectual Property Group and the firm’s Patent Litigation team as counsel in its Washington DC office. Sokal was formerly with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner.

Doug Luftman joined Lecorpio as chief innovation officer and general counsel at the beginning of October, announced the firm. Luftman was formerly vice president of innovation services and chief intellectual property counsel at NetApp, Inc.

In mid-September, Morrison & Foerster launched MoFo@ITC, a new blog reporting on legal developments, trends, and statistics on patent infringement and other intellectual property-based actions at the US International Trade Commission (ITC). According to the firm, the ITC continues to be an active venue for the adjudication of IP disputes, with 22 new investigations institutes in 2015 through August. The blog is co-edited by Brian Busey, who has litigated more than 30 cases before the ITC, and has served as the president of the ITC’s Trial Lawyers Association; and Lynn Levine, former director of the ITC’s Office of Unfair Import Investigations, who was responsible for overseeing the work of ITC staff attorneys on more than 500 ITC investigations during her 25-year tenure.