WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Michelle K. Lee, President Barack Obama’s pick to head the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, reportedly will be confirmed next week.
According to The Hill, the U.S. Senate will vote on Lee’s nomination Monday, along with the nomination of Daniel Marti, who was picked by Obama in August to be the intellectual property enforcement coordinator for the White House — or “IP czar.”
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn’s office told The Hill that Lee most likely will be confirmed by voice vote and Marti by a full roll call vote.
Lee
Both Lee and Marti made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee with little opposition.
At an executive meeting last week, the panel voted unanimously in favor of Lee, who was nominated to the position in October.
She currently is the deputy under secretary and deputy director of the PTO, and has held the position since last January.
The office has been without a permanent director since February 2013, when David Kappos resigned.
From 2012 to 2013, Lee served as director of the PTO’s Silicon Valley office, which isn’t expected to open until later this year.
Before that, she was the deputy general counsel and head of patents and patent strategy at Google — one of the most vocal critics of the current patent system — for nine years.
Before joining Google, Lee was a partner and an associate at Fenwick & West LLP, from 1996 to 2003, and an associate at Keker & Van Nest LLP from 1994 to 1996.
Marti is currently a managing partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.
The judiciary committee also unanimously reported Marti’s nomination to the Senate.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at [email protected].
