Arti K. Rai

Ms. Arti K. Rai was sworn-in as Administrator for External Affairs at the USPTO on October 19, 2009. The Office of External Affairs consists of the Office of Intellectual Property and Enforcement (OIPPE) and the Office of Governmental Affairs (OGA). Those offices report to Ms. Rai.

As Administrator for External Affairs, Ms. Rai serves as a policy adviser to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and oversees the office's work with Congress on major legislation to reform current patent law and practice, coordination of informational and educational events on piracy and counterfeiting, and implementation of international intellectual property treaties. She is responsible for working with foreign governments to develop and improve their intellectual property laws and systems, and advising the Department of State and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on drafting, reviewing and negotiating of intellectual property sections in bilateral and multilateral investment treaties and trade agreements as well as advising the USTR on intellectual property issues in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Ms. Rai, most recently the Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law at Duke University, is an authority in patent law, administrative law, law and the biopharmaceutical industry, and health care regulation. Rai has served as a peer reviewer for Science, Research Policy, the Journal of Legal Studies, various National Academy of Sciences reports on intellectual property, and various NIH study sections. She has also testified before the U.S. Senate on innovation policy issues. Rai is currently the chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association. She has also held teaching positions with Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School, University of San Diego School of Law and University of Chicago Law School, Medical School and Graduate School of Public Policy.

Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.

Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991.