Director's Blog: the latest from USPTO leadership

A Historic Moment for the USPTO and Innovators Everywhere

Blog by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee

It’s been a momentous time for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in recent weeks, as we officially opened our West Coast Regional Office in Silicon Valley on October 15 and our Texas Regional Office in Dallas on Nov 9.  And today we are announcing the hire of the first Director of our Texas Regional Office, stellar engineer and intellectual property attorney Hope Shimabuku. Her hire comes at a time of historic achievement, as we have completed the establishment of four USPTO regional offices, a commitment dating to September 16, 2011, when President Obama signed the America Invents Act into law. The regional offices embody the Administration’s commitment to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across the United States. Of course, we at the USPTO know our work has only just begun. We can now, more than ever, engage directly and meaningfully with our nation’s inventors, entrepreneurs, IP practitioners, academics, and policymakers. And we plan to take full advantage of that opportunity.

Hope is a critical player in that mission. She brings to the Texas Regional Office nearly two decades of professional experience, with the added bonus of being a native Texan. Most recently, Hope was part of the Office of General Counsel at Xerox Corporation serving as Vice-President and Corporate Counsel responsible for all intellectual property matters for Xerox Business Services, LLC. She also worked for Blackberry, advising on U.S. and Chinese standards setting, cybersecurity, technology transfer, and IP laws and legislation. She was also an engineer for Procter & Gamble and Dell Computer Corporation, and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a cum laude J.D. from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

As a veteran of the innovation ecosystem in Texas, she is well aware of the dynamic variety of economic giants as well as up-and-comers across the broader region, in industries ranging from semiconductors to bioengineering. She knows the emerging economic opportunities in that region, and is committed to advancing the mission of the USPTO as America’s Innovation Agency by assisting entrepreneurs to unleash game-changing innovations while creating high-paying jobs and fueling economic growth.

When Hope comes on board in January, she will actively engage with innovation communities in many states across the broader region, promoting USPTO services and initiatives that match the exact needs of those audiences. She will educate but she will also listen, the USPTO’s model of 21st Century governance. And she’ll supervise a stellar team of hard-working employees. The Texas Regional Office already boasts many Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges, with the first patent examiner class onboarding January 11, 2016. Once fully staffed, the Texas Regional Office will have more than 100 examiners, judges, and outreach and administrative staff.

The West Coast Regional Office, when fully staffed, will have approximately 125 employees, comprised of 80 patent examiners, over 25 Patent Trial and Appeal Board Judges, and outreach and administrative staff.  The office has already been active in outreach efforts with organizations across Silicon Valley, the state of California, as well as across the other states in its region.

Despite having only been officially open in our permanent location for a month, the West Coast Regional Office has already provided assistance to over 100 walk-in visitors, trained new patent examiners, provided tours for local elected officials, and hosted patent and trademark learning events. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker recently visited the office and spent time meeting with employees, and the office also hosted dignitaries in a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) roundtable. Prior to the official opening of the permanent space, the office was already hard at work engaging with startups and incubators, providing technology focused and industry specific workshops and presentations specific to Silicon Valley and the region. 

The Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver has also been busy, most recently hosting a Patent Quality roundtable on October 21, in conjunction with the IP Committee of the Colorado Chapter of the Association for Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the IP Section of the Colorado Bar Association. Members of the bar, local patent community and public-at-large are invited to come together with USPTO officials and share ideas, experiences and insights on patent quality. The Rocky Mountain, Midwest, and West Coast regional offices are now staffed with outreach officers who are dedicated to building relationships with innovators and partners in their regions.

The Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Office in Detroit, staffed with 154 employees, continues to hold frequent events and actively engage with the innovation community. In 2015, since Director Christal Sheppard came on board, the office has engaged with over 10,000 stakeholders and held over 120 outreach events for audiences of senior citizen entrepreneurs to K-12 future innovators and everyone in between. The office’s Saturday seminars, free and open to the public, are a very popular event. One important focus of the Midwest Regional Office has been on K-12 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach. The office is working with local school districts and after-school programs to encourage innovation with K-12 education, particularly focusing on children and teens that, currently and historically, are underrepresented in STEM and the innovation economy. Since 2012, the office has reached over 700 K-12 students in underserved communities.

In each of the offices, we continue to look for talented and dedicated employees to join our team.  If you are interested in working for the USPTO in one of these regional offices, please refer to www.usajobs.gov for openings.

We are very excited about the important role the USPTO regional offices will play in supporting the overall mission of the Agency including ensuring easier access by innovators and entrepreneurs to resources and intellectual property protections they need to compete in today’s global economy. Look for me to provide a new update on regional office activities in the spring, as the USPTO embarks on our next phase of community engagement with four permanent regional offices up and running.

Posted at 05:09AM Dec 08, 2015 in USPTO  |  Comments[5]