Patent Law Practice Center

Catching up with Bob Stoll

On July 19, 2012, I interviewed Bob Stoll, former Commissioner for Patents of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  The interview took place in a conference room at Drinker Biddle on K Street in Washington, D.C.  After 29 years working for the USPTO and a total of 34 years working for the government, Stoll retired on December 31, 2011.  He then started his new, second career as a private citizen and all-around patent specialist at Drinker Biddle in the firm’s Intellectual Property Group.

In his 29 years with the USPTO, Bob Stoll held several leadership posts, including training foreign officials on all aspects of intellectual property (IP), overseeing the Office of Enforcement, and directing federal legislative priorities for the Agency. In his tenure as Commissioner for Patents, Stoll was in charge of implementing initiatives to improve the speed and quality of the patent review process, was instrumental in reducing the patent application backlog, and undertook an initiative to clean out the oldest cases on the USPTO docket.

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