IP Rights Advocate and fmr USPTO Dir, Andrei Iancu, will Deliver Keynote at IP Summit in S.F.

The Center for Intellectual Property Understanding is pleased to announce that the Under Secretary of Commerce and United States Patent and Trademark Office Director, 2017-2021, Hon. Andrei Iancu, has accepted its invitation to present the keynote address at the 2025 IP Awareness Summit in San Francisco.

The Summit, IPAS 2025, is being held this year at the iconic headquarters of Dolby Laboratories on Market Street in San Francisco on April 24th. It is open to all who register.

In an interview with Mr. Iancu recorded for the industry-leading podcast, “Understanding IP Matters,” scheduled to drop on February 5th, he has a lot to say about today’s IP system and its impact on innovation, including artificial intelligence.

“The enforcement system has gotten to be so cumbersome that we are certainly not maximizing the innovation potential of the United States. In fact, we are depressing it…

“Industry hasn’t coalesced yet and, and, and come to a negotiated solution [regarding patent certainty]. And it’s really hard for the members to do it, but I really hope they do. Section 101, as it exists now was written word for the patent act of 1793.

“It was written by Jefferson and Madison the main and first substantive section of the patent code. It defines our 21st century patent system in the United States was written in the 18th century by our founders. It’s unbelievable. Congress has not legislated in that area since 1793, and the courts are struggling to fit 21st century technology into an 18th century statute.

“They can be forgiven for having trouble with this because the reality is we have modern technologies now like artificial intelligence and software code and biotechnology and the manipulation of DNA. and it’s really hard to figure how they should fit into the patent system when you’re dealing with a [dated] statute. Congress needs to step up and do its job and legislate.”

Mr. Iancu, an aeronautical engineer and patent attorney, is Chairman of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), a bipartisan coalition dedicated to promoting strong and effective intellectual property rights. He is also a partner in the Los Angeles and Washington DC offices of Sullivan & Cromwell.

A sampling of IPAS 2025 speakers and panelists:

Licensing/monetization – Louis Carbonneau (Tangible IP, ex-MSFT licensing exec)
Policymaker – Jerry Ma (Chief AI Officer, USPTO)
IP Hall of Fame – Brian Hinman (ex-Philips IP chief, IBM, InterDigital, Aon; Verizon)
Valuation/M&A – Efrat Kasznik (Foresight Valuation; Stanford Business School)
Xerox-PARC-SRI – Mike Waltrip (Director IP strategy and commercialization)
China IP expert – Mark Cohen (ex-Microsoft, USPTO and UC Berkeley)
Innovation and IP policy expert – Adam Mosssoff (George Mason Law; Chair, Hudson Institute IP Forum)
Tencent – Head of Global Policy; fmr White House ‘IP Czar’
Dolby-Beijing – Matt Roberts (Dir of Policy & Business; ex-Oracle China)
Bloomberg News, San Francisco – Malathi Nayak (IP and litigation reporter)
Talal Shamoon, CEO, Intertrust Technologies, Digital Rights Management specialists; inventor 22 patents
Akeem Shannon, ‘Shark Tank’ contestant, inventor of Flipstik from a NASA adhesive, successful entrepreneur

Agenda, Full Speaker List, and Bios

IPAS 2025 is being produced by the Center for IP Understanding, a nonpartisan nonprofit established in 2016 by Marshall Phelps, former head of IP Business and Strategy at Microsoft and, earlier, at IBM, Hon. Paul R. Michel, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Bruce Berman, who writes, speaks and advises about IP trends.

The event brings together community leaders from technology, business, government, education and finance. It includes inventors, creative industry workers, entrepreneurs, educators, investors, policymakers, IP organizations, lawyers and students, and their affiliations.

For panels and breakout sessions, full speaker list and their biographies go to www.ipawarenesssummit.com

Organizations CIPU has partnered on past Summits include UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business; Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern; the Center for Innovation Research at Northeastern in Boston; and Columbia Technology Ventures at Columbia University. Examples of partners and sponsors are listed on the event home page.

Mr. Iancu is considered by many as the most visionary of USPTO Directors in the system’s 235-year history. He is an avid proponent of IP rights as property rights and free-market principles, including for artificial intelligence, which he believes should be watched but not over-regulated, especially if the U.S. wishes to compete successfully with other nations.

“Regulators and the government in general has to be very careful. They have to attend to AI for sure. It’s a really important new tool that has lots of ramifications in society. But they have to act with humility and restraint; listen to the industry, spend a lot of time trying to understand what the experts are telling you before hampering this technology…”

“Intellectual property rights in a free market economy are absolutely critical to ensuring that we have a robust innovation system… The only way that has ever worked is to incentivize and protect innovation and investment is with a robust system of [reliable] intellectual property rights. We have to begin there, treat those rights as property rights.”

Mr. Iancu is also a proponent of of more certain copyrights, and for providing a level playing field to IP-dependent businesses, inventors and creators, and for encouraging IP investment.

The Early-Bird is Now

There is still time to take advantage of early-bird pricing for already discounted business, non-profit and student rates. To register or for more information go here: www.ipawarnesssummit.com. There will be multiple networking opportunities, including a drinks reception.

To take full advantage of registration savings use the following discount code. Discounts end soon.