WASHINGTON, D.C. April 26, 2023 - AIPLA co-hosted a standing-room only event in honor of 2023 World Intellectual Property Day on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, to celebrate this year’s theme – Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity. We were pleased to be joined by both congressional leaders on IP issues, Sen. Chris Coons, Chair of the Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, Chair of the House IP Subcommittee. Sen. Mazie Hirono generously sponsored the event on Capitol Hill.
Introductory remarks were given by USPTO Director Kathi Vidal and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. A panel of female entrepreneurs and changemakers was moderated by Samantha Aguayo, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Policy Counsel of IPO, and Brad Watts VP for Patents and Innovation Policy at the US Chamber of Commerce’s GIPC. The panel included: Elizabeth Dougherty, Eastern Regional Outreach Director at the USPTO, Rachel Kahler, Patent Agent at General Mills, Maria Strong, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Policy and International Affairs, Renae Fossum, Senior Director - Research Fellow at Procter & Gamble, Rachel Lee, Co-founder and CETO of BlueFoot, and Casey Boshae Williams, Founder of THE GENTLE PIT.
Additional speakers included Dana Colarulli, Executive Director of LESI and Jennifer Simmons, Director of Government Relations at INTA.
The speakers noted that there has been more effort on the part of businesses and government to elevate women in the innovation space, but that more can and needs to be done to reduce barriers and make innovation and creation more accessible to all.
"This year’s World IP Day is an opportunity to highlight and celebrate the work of talented women inventors, innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs around the world. AIPLA is committed to reducing the barriers for all in the IP ecosystem and will continue furthering the goal of expanding opportunity and support for women in the field," said AIPLA Executive Director, Vincent E. Garlock, who opened the event last night.
We thank the USPTO for coordinating the event and thank our partner organizations for co-sponsoring the event: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the U.S. Copyright Office, US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), International Trademark Association (INTA), The American Bar Association's Section on Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), the US IP Alliance, the Global IP Alliance, and the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO).
The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), was founded in 1897 to maintain a high standard of professional ethics, to aid in the improvement in laws relating to intellectual property and in their proper interpretation by the courts, and to provide legal education to the public and to its members on intellectual property issues. AIPLA is a national bar association constituted primarily of practitioners in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community.
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