Update on Our Satellite Offices
Blog by Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle K. Lee
Welcome to the latest in a regular series of updates on the status of our satellite offices in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and Silicon Valley. As you know, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA), signed into law by President Obama, requires the USPTO to establish regional satellite locations as part of a larger effort to modernize the U.S. patent system. These offices are so important to inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses in the surrounding regions—and to our agency’s core mission of fostering American innovation and competitiveness.
If you haven’t already heard, June 30, 2014 is the date we’re opening our permanent satellite office in Denver, Colorado. Located in the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building in the city’s central business district, the new office will help the region’s entrepreneurs get cutting-edge ideas to the marketplace faster, grow their businesses, enable them to create new, high-skilled jobs in the Rocky Mountain region, and allow them to more efficiently navigate the world’s strongest intellectual property system.
The other big news is that we have hired a Regional Director for the Denver office—Russell Slifer, who has practiced intellectual property law for the last 20 years. For the past eight years, Russ served as the Chief Patent Counsel for Micron Technology in Boise, Idaho. He also was a design engineer for Honeywell and spent more than nine years in private practice in Minnesota helping high technology clients, including individual inventors, universities, and Fortune 100 companies, build patent portfolios to protect their innovations. Russ is an active member in the legal and innovation communities. These experiences make Russ an ideal person to serve as the inaugural leader of our new satellite office for the Rocky Mountain region, and I look forward to him transitioning in as part of our senior leadership team.
Keep in mind our Denver office needs more than just a director. We’re currently accepting applications for Administrative Patent Judges, a Deputy Regional Director for Outreach, Computer Engineering Patent Examiners and Electrical Engineering Patent Examiners. The deadlines to apply for these jobs vary and some are coming soon, so if you want to apply, please do so quickly.
The Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in Detroit opened for business in July 2012 and continues to play a vital role for the agency and the local innovation community. We have hired and trained 100 patent examiners who are processing patent applications in one of our nation’s historic innovation hubs. Our eight administrative patent judges are managing appeal cases and America Invents Act trials, and this summer, will move into a new space that includes a hearing room. We recently posted a job announcement for a Regional Director of the Detroit office, who will be responsible for general oversight of the office as the most senior ranking official representing the USPTO. We have also posted an Administrative Patent Judge vacancy announcement for the Detroit office, for which relocation incentives may be authorized. Please help us spread the word about these vacancies. The application deadline for the Regional Director position is July 1, 2014, and the Administrative Patent Judge position is July 31, 2014.
In April, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved the terms and conditions for our permanent facility in the San Jose City Hall. It will include a large outreach center on the first floor of the wing that is on track to open in the spring of 2015 and office space that will open a few months later. We are also looking for a Deputy Regional Director for Outreach for this office, and the deadline to apply is June 25, 2014. We are also actively engaged with stakeholders in the Silicon Valley and across the region. Since my last update, we’ve hosted several events to gather input and suggestions from our customers as we look for ways to further improve our nation’s IP system. These included discussions on the administrative trials before our Patent Trial and Appeal Board, a focus on Trademark operations, a patent rulemaking roundtable on collecting attributable ownership information, and a multi-stakeholder forum on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Finally, our Dallas satellite office is scheduled to open in the fall of 2015 in the Terminal Annex Federal Building in downtown Dallas. We have hired five Administrative Patent Judges who have been operating out of the Santa Fe Federal Building. We continue to engage with local partners such as the Dallas Entrepreneur Center to support the innovation community, start-ups, and entrepreneurs.
We continue to hire Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges for all of our satellite office locations. Our goal is to have at least 20 in each office who will work to reduce the inventory of trial and appeal cases. In addition, we expect to recruit patent examiners for Silicon Valley and Dallas offices closer to the dates when their respective permanent spaces near completion. All vacancy announcements for these offices will be posted on usajobs.gov.
I feel that these satellite offices are critical to our efforts to support innovation and creativity, help protect and foster American innovation in the global marketplace, help businesses cut through red tape, and create new economic opportunities locally. This is an exciting time, not just for the USPTO, but for the men and women from coast to coast who are building, creating, and marketing America’s future. I will continue to keep you informed about major new developments in these offices as they arise.
Posted at 04:33PM Jun 16, 2014 in USPTO |