Before that, he was Sen. John McCain's spokesman when he ran for president in He also served as press secretary for the Republican National Committee from to , according to his LinkedIn. Now: Vice president of communications at Facebook. Bounds has had two stints at Facebook: He first served as director of corporate communications until , then rejoined the company in Was: Director of global engagement for the National Security Council from to Prior to that, Heck worked at the State Department's cultural affairs bureau, according to her LinkedIn.
Now: Head of entrepreneurship at Stripe. Heck helps entrepreneurs worldwide start businesses, particularly in developing nations, according to the LA Times.
Was: Siger worked on Obama's campaign in He also worked in the Justice Department for three years during the Obama administration, according to his LinkedIn. Now: General counsel for Bungalow, a venture-backed co-living company. Before joining Bungalow, Siger worked at Thumbtack and Uber.
Was: Hertz is a lawyer who worked in DC for more than 10 years, first as a counselor in the Office of Management and Budget and later as the principal deputy counsel to Biden when he was Vice President, according to her LinkedIn. Now: Hertz joined Facebook in as an attorney handling regulatory matters. Now, Hertz is joining the White House senior staff as Biden's staff secretary. Georgia shipwreck's last giant chunk removed from water.
Load Error. Read the original article on Business Insider. Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article. Found the story interesting? It also includes discussions about non-fungible tokens NFTs , internet connectivity and data storage.
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While a technical degree is required to be a member of the patent bar, IP litigators as well as trademark and copyright practitioners do not need technical training.
Many of the most successful patent litigators, including some in this room, have degrees in the social sciences or humanities. And that's a good thing. Just as IP pervades our society and helps drive our economy, the IP legal community should accommodate the talents of interested, committed attorneys, regardless of their college degree. A good IP lawyer needs to understand not only the technical issues in a case but also how to explain those issues to those with little or no technical knowledge or background.
So, if you are a quick study and can work with colleagues and experts to get up to speed on the technical issues, and have good lawyering skills, don't give up your IP aspirations. I'm glad I didn't. On the one hand, it has been a big change. The diversity of issues and breadth of impact that is part of my daily life as Chief of Staff is far greater than in my former role as a patent litigator.
A day may start out with a briefing on the upcoming World IP Organization General Assemblies in Geneva, and finish with an interagency meeting at the Department of Commerce on copyright issues, with meetings in between on the agency's patent quality initiative, management of our four satellite offices in Silicon Valley, Detroit, Denver and Dallas, and next year's budget.
I'm learning an entirely new set of rules, regulations and bureaucratic idiosyncrasies. And I'm wearing ties every day, not to mention the occasional pair of long underwear during the winter.
I am definitely not in Silicon Valley anymore. On the other hand, my transition to public service has not required a big change in my focus. Through my work in the community, in philanthropy, and in politics, as well as through pro bono matters in civil rights and other areas, I've always set my sights on making a broader positive impact.
But there's no question that today I look at my role and my purpose very differently. Because now, my client is the American people. They are as engaged and demanding as the clients I had in private practice. As they should be. It's just as important to listen to what they have to say. It's just as important to be a loyal and fervent advocate for their interests. And it's just as important to get it right. The Constitution provides for a patent system but that provision is not self-executing.
It gives Congress power, but it doesn't tell us what patent law should look like. The patent system we have is the result of decisions made by Congress, the Administration and the courts, each attempting to strike the right balance between rewarding the risks that inventors and their backers take, and protecting consumers and competitors from misuse of the patent-holder's exclusive rights.
In other words, so the system's benefits continue to outweigh the costs. Although much of the attention recently has been given to legislative efforts at patent reform, we can, and should, ensure that the patent system is balanced and effective through multiple ways-legislatively through Congressional action, judicially through rulings from the courts, administratively by actions taken by the PTO and other agencies, and of course with input and action from all of you.
While not the only challenge facing our patent system, addressing this issue is imperative. Right now, a complaint doesn't require much detail, so it's relatively inexpensive for a plaintiff to file one and initiate a lawsuit. However, for most operating companies, which develop and sell products and services, there are strategic considerations to evaluate before sending a demand letter or filing suit, including the possibility of patent counterclaims, disrupting relationships with suppliers and partners, and triggering the mutual assured destruction of legal department budgets that discovery can become.
Patent assertion entities are different, because they don't have these strategic barriers to threatening or filing suit. They don't have to worry about a defendant's asserting its own patent portfolio against them, and they have no relationships with suppliers and partners, or typically much to produce in discovery. For defendants in a patent case, the costs are immediate and significant. I don't have to tell this audience how expensive it can be to have a law firm review a complaint and the patents-in-suit, and do a preliminary analysis of possible defenses and damages.
And let's not forget discovery. A defendant will have to review and produce documents relating to allegedly infringing products or services, and additional documentation for the damages portion of the case. That's to say nothing of the cost and distraction of depositions, and we haven't even started talking about expert witnesses yet. And as you know if you've stayed up for days preparing, working with witnesses and eating several thousand calories in red licorice and mini-candy bars the ones with peanuts can serve as dinner , it costs even more to take a case to trial.
It's no mystery why there is pressure to settle even if the case is weak on the merits. Going to trial isn't costless for the plaintiff, either. But some patent assertion entities build their business around the idea that they can send hundreds, even thousands, of vague demand letters to companies that will do the math and pay for a license just to avoid litigation expenses.
If the PAE business model appears to be thriving, it's because it has the economics of patent litigation on its side. Now, reasonable people may differ about the effects that different proposals for reform might have on the patent system as a whole, or even whether non-judicial measures are required at all. Certainly, on the judicial front, there have been important developments.
In the Supreme Court's last term, the Court made it easier for district courts to award attorney's fees to prevailing parties in patent cases in the Octane and Highmark cases, adopted a higher standard for claim clarity in Nautilus , and laid the groundwork for aggressive challenges to certain categories of patents such as business method and software patents in CLS Bank.
For my part, I think that it's possible for those in the legislative and executive branches to take positive steps to correct the imbalance in the system while still providing inventors with the incentive to invent, and patent owners with the ability to enforce their patent rights appropriately. As I said before, fixing this imbalance is just one part of the puzzle. But it's an essential part, because the last thing we need as our economy gains traction again is for researchers, inventors, and small businesses to be distracted from innovation by litigation.
Building a patent system that remains effective and balanced as technology continues to transform at a rapid pace demands that we look at the system as a whole over the long term.
It also demands that we not stand still and wait in the hopes of reaching a legislative solution. That's why, at the PTO, we're redoubling our commitment to issue the best quality patents possible.
While quality has always been our 1 goal, there are new opportunities provided by the AIA's allowing the agency greater access to the fees it collects, our continuing progress toward our target patent application backlog and pendency, and, as I started off this speech, the increasing attention to patents. Our enhanced patent quality initiative, announced at Stanford Law School by Deputy Director Lee in late June, is the most ambitious in the agency's history.
In part, the initiative leverages the PTO's implementation of several Administrative actions announced by the White House "designed to protect innovators from frivolous litigation," "strengthen our patent system[,] and foster innovation. We're providing targeted training for patent examiners, including four new training modules on how best to examine functional claims.
We've launched a pilot program that allows applicants to use glossaries in patent specifications to define terms, leaving no doubt as to their meaning, to the examiner, and potential future adversaries, judges and juries down the road. We're making it easier for companies, experts and the general public to provide more relevant prior art to the PTO.
We're refining our existing third-party prior art submission program, exploring other ways for the public to submit prior art particularly non-patent literature , and updating our guidance and training for examiners to more effectively use crowd-sourced prior art.
By encouraging the innovation community to uncover and submit hard-to-find prior art, we're actively enlisting the innovation community in our pursuit of quality. We're expanding our Patent Examiner Technical Training program, which ensures that experts in industry and academia can provide relevant technical training to our patent examiners, whether in person at our headquarters in Virginia or at our satellite offices.
This is another area where you can have a direct impact on the quality of patents we issue. Speaking of satellite offices, although our Silicon Valley satellite office is in temporary space until we open in San Jose City Hall next Spring, we have 19 PTAB judges on site and are actively engaging with stakeholders across the Bay Area and beyond.
The head of our Silicon Valley office, John Cabeca, is here today. We're also helping to make sure that under-resourced independent inventors, start-ups and small businesses are able to access the USPTO by providing dedicated resources to pro se applicants who lack legal representation, and working with our partners nationwide to expand the AIA pro bono program.
Assistance from the PTO or from a patent attorney can be critical in preparing the necessary documents to help ensure that, if an invention is patentable, a quality patent is issued as quickly as possible.
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