USPTO Director Sets Out Trademark Priorities
Kathi Vidal assumed leadership of the USPTO just over than a year ago. In a fireside chat on the Innovation Marketplace stage yesterday, she provides insights into what she has been doing and shares some of the Office’s upcoming plans. James Nurton reports.
Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (USA) sat down yesterday on the Innovation Marketplace stage yesterday with INTA’s Director of Government Relations, Jenny Simmons (USA) for a wide-ranging fireside chat, covering a number of topics including outreach, pro bono, climate, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse, anticounterfeiting, and scams.
As Director of the USPTO, Ms. Vidal leads an Office with 13,000 employees and a budget of US $4 billion. Since taking office in April last year, she said she has prioritized, “reaching new audiences including women and other under-represented groups.” This work falls into five buckets:
1. Educating children: the USPTO taught 280,000 children about entrepreneurship and intellectual property (IP) protection in a series of programs across the country. “By the end of the week, nine-year olds were asking, ‘how do I protect my merch on the Internet?’” said Ms. Vidal.
2. Continuing education, such as programs for teachers, including a new Master’s program.
3. Being in people’s communities to meet them physically. The Office will soon be consulting on plans to expand outreach with new offices and across government.
4. Meeting people where they are in terms of how they identify, for example with programs on women entrepreneurship and working with military spouses and veterans at military bases worldwide, to reduce barriers and come up with programs to help stakeholders, such as the IP Identifier tool, and new communications for patent and trademark applicants. Ms. Vidal said these are vital to “reduce barriers and bring more people into the ecosystem.”
5. Making contacts across government, including with the Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, and Food and Drug Administration.
These outreach efforts work in tandem with pro bono initiatives, including those led by the USPTO and INTA, said Ms. Vidal: “Pro bono is so important in being able to support people no matter where they are in the country, economically, or what they know about entrepreneurship or IP.”
By reaching out more, she said the Office can increase the participants in the IP system among certain groups, including women, those who identify as African American, Black, or Hispanic, Native Americans, and others—all of whom are currently under-represented. “Innovation is everywhere. Everybody has great ideas, and they just need access,” said Ms. Vidal, who added that the USPTO is also looking to work with organizations across the world, including on mentoring programs.
“We want to be a fast adopter of responsible AI … We’re not going to bring it on until we know it’s responsible.”
- Kathi Vidal | USPTO (USA)
Cooperation on Climate
The climate challenge is an issue that “we can all align on,” said Ms. Vidal. The USPTO has signed a memorandum of understanding with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and is part of the WIPO Green initiative. It is also focusing on climate change with the IP5—a forum of the world’s five largest IP offices, European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean IP Office, China’s National IP Administration, and USPTO.
USPTO climate initiatives include the climate innovation first-time filer program and the Patents for Humanity and Trademarks for Humanity programs to reward and highlight efforts in the green tech space. “We need to create collaborations across borders to make sure we’re bringing those ideas to market,” said Ms. Vidal.
The Metaverse and AI
Ms. Vidal said the “number one question” she has been asked during her first year has head of the Office is about NFTs and the metaverse. The Office is working on a study with the U.S. Copyright Office, which covers patents, trademarks, and copyright. “We’re now digesting that information to determine next steps moving forward,” she said, adding: “With all these new technologies it’s important that we synergize and harmonize internationally.”
Similarly, she said that almost every day she sees new issues arising relating to artificial intelligence (AI). Noting that AI is “bigger than the USPTO,” she said: “We want to be a fast adopter of responsible AI … We’re not going to bring it on until we know it’s responsible.”
With that caveat, though, Ms. Vidal said she is an optimist about AI: “I see opportunities and I see an opportunity to de-bias what we do. We can develop AI in a way that’s less biased. We’re looking for things like that.” But she added that the USPTO needs to modernize its systems and ensure that confidential data is protected.
“Innovation is everywhere. Everybody has great ideas, and they just need access.”
- Kathi Vidal | USPTO (USA)
Progress on Anticounterfeiting and Scams
Another area that she said requires global efforts is anticounterfeiting. Here, said Ms. Vidal: “This is an area where we need to do much, much more than we’re doing now. We need to do more across the board to keep people safe and to protect all our brands and businesses.” Recent U.S. initiatives include messaging by the National Crime Prevention Council (which has also been adopted in Mexico), the Camp Invention educational initiative, ongoing efforts of the IP attaches, and a new subcommittee of the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC) on anticounterfeiting. “We need to do bigger things to make sure we get ahead. It’s not just an IP issue. It’s about trade and growing economies,” said Ms. Vidal.
Asked about scams and other fraudulent threats such as people impersonating the USPTO, Ms. Vidal said she is “much more optimistic” and discussed a number of positive steps in the past year following the passage of the Trademark Modernization Act, including the termination of 19,000 invalid U.S. trademark registrations, and a new communication that will be sent to all trademark applicants.
“We’re doing a lot of investigatory work to try to identity patterns and detect fraud early on,” said Ms. Vidal. “We want to have tools that third parties can use, but we’re not relying on that alone. We identify trends and solicit feedback so we can do even more. Technologies will give us the ability to identify trends.”
Learn more:
Listen to the Brand & New podcast: "IP Offices Series: What Does it Take to Transform IP? Guest: Kathi Vidal, Director of USPTO"
Thank you to Vaudra International for sponsoring this episode of Brand & New.
