In just four years at the USPTO—his total time in federal service—Jerry Ma has driven the agency’s leadership in the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technology solutions in innovation, patenting, and the overall intellectual property (IP) landscape. To honor his work that has benefited innovators across the nation, Ma, the USPTO’s Director of Emerging Technology and Chief AI Officer, was awarded this month the Partnership for Public Service’s Samuel J. Heyman Service to America award in the Emerging Leader category. Ma becomes the first USPTO employee to win the medal—known more commonly as “the Sammies®”—honoring excellence in the federal government.
His instrumental work at America’s Innovation Agency includes developing AI and machine learning (ML) tools that support USPTO patent examiners in their process of reviewing the more than 400,000 patent applications filed with the agency each year, and helping craft USPTO policies and guidance to illuminate AI’s benefits, risks, and implications for IP protection, among other notable accomplishments.
It can be a challenge to fully understand and consider AI's promise and peril within the innovation space, but Ma has proven successful.
“He is on the leading edge of shaping new policies that are at the intersection of AI and patents, AI and copyright, and other forms of intellectual property,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Kathi Vidal in her introduction of the awardee on stage at the Kennedy Center during the Sammies awards ceremony last week. “Jerry is rethinking and reshaping the legal, policy, and operational aspects of our 233-year-old system of protecting our nation’s intellectual property.”
Growing up in West Lafayette, Indiana, Ma graduated from Harvard with a major in economics. Prior to his role at the USPTO, Ma was a self-described “tech guy with no government experience” in Silicon Valley leading the development of the first open-source champion-level “Go” bot and the first AI language model computer program trained on the universe of known protein sequences.
Now, he’s driven to serve the public with his talent and knowledge in the field of AI. When accepting his award, 27-year-old Ma made sure to mention those most impacted by his work: “To those we serve, America’s innovators and entrepreneurs: you all form the beating heart of our nation’s prosperity, and your success isn’t only our agency’s success, but America’s success.”
Visit our Artificial Intelligence webpage to learn more about the work Ma and his team are doing to advance the use of AI tools and address AI’s evolving role in IP and innovation.
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