Patent Law Practice Center

Amin confirmed by Senate as IP enforcement coordinator

On Thursday, August 3, 2017, the United States Senate, through a deal brokered by leaders McConnell (R-KY) and Schumer (D-NY), voted out dozens of Trump nominees under a unanimous consent agreement. Under this procedure, there is no individual or “roll call” votes or floor debate on a nominee.

Of particular note for the intellectual property community, Vishal Amin was confirmed to be the IP enforcement coordinator at the White House and Peter Davidson was confirmed to be general counsel at the Commerce Department.

Amin had been a lawyer for Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) working on the AIA and then for Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) working on the Innovation Act. Therefore, Amin has been in the middle of IP legislation since President Obama took office in January 2009. Before that, he worked in the Bush White House and Commerce Department on patent reform and IP issues.  Amin generally favors the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and going after patent trolls. He has been strongly endorsed by the film, music and traditional copyright interests, which puts him at odds with the tech community on copyright, Internet freedom and even, perhaps, cybersecurity issues (think proposals from Hollywood to enable proactive hacking to stop circumvention of copyright protection measures). Because of his support for the PTAB and close association with the AIA and Innovation Act, the independent inventor community opposed Amin for this position, which is sometimes referred to as “the IP Czar.”

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