Who Will Be Obama's Patent Office Pick?
Rumors are swirling in the intellectual property policy community about who might be in the running for Patent and Trademark Office director under President Barack Obama. CongressDaily took the pulse of some IP watchers and included a list of potential contenders in Monday's PM edition.
Some of the names circulating include: Q. Todd Dickinson, who ran the PTO under former President Bill Clinton and is now head of the American IP Law Association; Eli Lilly general counsel Robert Armitage; 3M IP counsel Gary Griswold; patent attorneys Ray Millien and James Pooley; and law professors Mark Lemley of Stanford and Arti Rai of Duke, a classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School. Some possible picks were on the front lines of the congressional patent reform battle this year, which could be a disadvantage, sources said.
One name that was not included in the story but has been mentioned by some stakeholders is Shanna Winters. Winters, whose name was also reportedly in the mix for White House IP enforcement coordinator, is chief counsel to Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and IP Subcommittee. Berman plans to leave that post in the 111th Congress to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee and reliable sources report that she plans to follow her boss to the new panel.
Meanwhile, an industry insider said that despite the names being whispered in Washington, the PTO director job is a "wild card." "Half the names you're hearing are because of self-promotion and the other half are logical," the source said, adding that the person who assumes the role must be a "well rounded candidate who has leadership and management experience" to lead an agency of 9,500 employees.
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