Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently told interviewer David Rubenstein:
“That experience [as a venture capitalist investing in medical device and IT health companies] enables me to be a better Commerce Secretary. I know entrepreneurs; what it takes to have innovation… I saw that strong patents matter to protect innovation.”
The Patent and Trademark Office is under the Commerce Department. President Biden has yet to select the next Director.
Secretary Raimondo’s comments come between 14:50-15:26 on the May 6 David Rubenstein Show. The interview was recorded on April 28th. For the full video go here, Bloomberg Studio 1.0.
On May 21 IP Watchdog reported that a group of 16 Republican senators sent a letter on Wednesday to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai denouncing the Biden Administration’s “disastrous decision” to support a proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive intellectual property (IP) rights for COVID-19-related inventions and products.
The letter explains that the waiver is not limited to vaccines and “will do nothing to end the pandemic,” but will instead “undermine the extraordinary global response that has achieved historically remarkable results in record time and our nation’s global leadership in the technologies, medicines, and treatments of the future.”
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