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Policy

U.S. Senate confirms patent office director

by Glenn Hess, special to C&EN
February 19, 2018 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 96, Issue 8

The U.S. Senate unanimously approved President Donald J. Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Lawmakers voted 94-0 on Feb. 5 to confirm Andrei Iancu, a patent litigator at Irell & Manella, a Los Angeles-based intellectual property law firm. He will manage a staff of about 8,000 examiners who grant patent protection to more than 300,000 inventions each year. Iancu has represented both patent owners and accused infringers in various fields, including genetic testing, therapeutics, and computer hardware and software. “In an area fraught with allegiances to particular industries or groups, Andrei can bring a neutral, unbiased perspective because he’s already had to approach issues from so many different angles,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in remarks on the Senate floor. James C. Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry trade group, says he looks forward to working with Iancu and his staff to “promote greater predictability and certainty of patent rights as a basis for investment in innovation.”

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