- Bruce Lehman
Bruce A. Lehman (born
September 19 ,1945 ) served fromAugust 5 ,1993 through 1998 as the United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce andCommissioner ofPatent s andTrademark s. Nominated by President Bill Clinton onApril 23 ,1993 , and confirmed by theUnited States Senate onAugust 5 ,1993 . During this short period of time, he was responsible for significant changes to theUnited States patent law .Lehman's streak of successful changes was finally ended when he tried to move control of the
U.S. Copyright Office from theLibrary of Congress to his department.After leaving USPTO, Lehman founded the
International Intellectual Property Institute , a non-profit, non-governmental organization.Biography
He went to the
University of Wisconsin-Madison , receiving aB.A. in 1967 and aJ.D. in 1970.He was named "Lawyer of the Year" 1994 by the
National Law Journal .In 1996 he served as the head of the U.S. delegation to
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on the December 1996 Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions.He also chaired the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the National Information Infrastructure Task Force.
James Boyle , an expert in intellectual property, has claimed that Lehman threatened to "destroy" him following the publication of an anti-whitepaper piece in the Washington Times criticizing the "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure" whitepaper, written by the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights.Lehman was asked by the President on
September 5 ,1997 , to serve on an interim basis as Acting Chairman of theNational Endowment for the Humanities .On
June 16 ,1997 he was named one of the 100 most influential men and women in Washington by the "National Journal ".He has been legal counsel to:
*theWisconsin State Legislature
*United States House of Representatives (nine years)
*Committee on the Judiciary andSubcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice , in the drafting of the 1976 Copyright Act, the 1980 Computer Software Amendments, and 1982 amendments to the Patent Laws.He has also worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, as a partner at
Swidler & Berlin (10 years), as an officer in theU.S. Army and is currently amember of the Bar of theDistrict of Columbia .Currently, he is President and CEO of the
International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), alobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., and is President of the U.S. Committee for the WIPO.He continues to fight against
submarine patents .See also
*
Software patent
*Copyright External links
* [http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~acitpo/copyright/clinton_whitepaper.html Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure] (Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, 1995)
* [http://www.wipo.int/patent/agenda/en/meetings/2002/speakers/lehman.html WIPO biography]
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