{"id":5925,"date":"2009-07-02T14:21:06","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T19:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5925"},"modified":"2009-07-02T14:24:20","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T19:24:20","slug":"welcome-nominee-kappos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/07\/welcome-nominee-kappos\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome, Nominee Kappos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kappos\"Like most patent practitioners, I am very pleased with\u00a0President Obama’s recent nomination of a new Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).\u00a0 The nominee is David Kappos, vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property at IBM.\u00a0 Kappos has over 20 years of intellectual property experience and manages IBM’s patent and trademark portfolios.\u00a0 Worth noting is that each year, IBM obtains more U.S. patents than nearly any other company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Kappos’s capacity as VP and assistant general counsel for IP at IBM, his views on many substantive patent law issues are well known.\u00a0 For example, he is not a fan of pure business method patents (preferring, for example, the machine-or-transformation test).\u00a0 He also generally supports harmonization efforts, including “opposition-like” post-grant review procedures.\u00a0 His opinions on such issues have been praised by many and criticized by some.\u00a0 Interestingly, some have also criticized his nomination for not emphasizing his potential to fix various problems of the USPTO, but instead focusing on his knowledge of the patent system in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I, on the other hand, am relieved that his nomination has been surrounded by discussions of his general knowledge of the patent system.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

If the opposite were true and Kappos’s nomination was overwhelmed by discussions of plans that detailed exactly how he will fix the USPTO, I would be greatly concerned.\u00a0 How is he supposed to know how to suitably resolve these issues before\u00a0having an intimate knowledge of the organization from within?<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding this, there are certainly clues regarding what aspects or procedures of the USPTO that Kappos may tinker with or try to fix.\u00a0 For example, like the rest of the patent bar, Kappos finds the backlog of patent applications and corresponding pendency time before first actions on the merits to be unacceptably long.\u00a0 He has publicly voiced that the USPTO desperately needs an information technology system overhaul to help increase examining efficiency and (hopefully) reduce the backlog and pendency times.\u00a0 Increasing USPTO efficiency alone would be a welcome change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am very much looking forward to having a Director with substantial practical knowledge of, and appreciation for,\u00a0the patent system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like most patent practitioners, I am very pleased with\u00a0President Obama’s recent nomination of a new Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).\u00a0 The nominee is David Kappos, vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property at IBM.\u00a0 Kappos has over 20 years of intellectual property […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}