This Week in Washington IP: First Public Roundtable on Trademark Modernization Act, Licensing the First U.S. Patent and Exploring Biden’s Broadband Infrastructure Plan

This week in Washington IP news, both houses of Congress remain quiet as the Senate and the House of Representatives enter scheduled work periods. Among policy institutes, however, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation explores the impacts of “deepfakes” and disinformation on democratic processes, and hosts its seventh Dynamic Antitrust event, which looks at how antitrust regulators can better incorporate the realities of innovation into enforcement activities. The Brookings Institution will look at the positive and negative aspects of President Biden’s recent $100 billion proposal to build out broadband infrastructure across the U.S. Finally, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will host its first public roundtable on the agency’s plans to implement the Trademark Modernization Act, and agency historian Adam Bisno will host a webinar looking at licensing activities surrounding the first issued U.S. patent.

Tuesday, June 1

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Roundtable on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Trademark Modernization Act

At 1:00 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

In mid-May, the USPTO issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register to begin the implementation of provisions of the Trademark Modernization Act passed into law by Congress last December. The NPRM would create new proceedings for cancelling marks to declutter the U.S. trademark register and improve accuracy by removing fraudulent marks. This is the first of two public roundtable events on the Trademark Modernization Act implementation being hosted by the USPTO and an agency panel at this event will include Amy Cotton, Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Examination Policy; Dan Vavonese, Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations; Robert Lavache, Senior Trademark Legal Policy Advisor; and Gerard Rogers, Chief Administrative Trademark Judge.

Wednesday, June 2

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI) Webinar 2021

At 12:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

This informational webinar will introduce attendees to the nomination and selection process leading up to awarding the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest award conferred by the U.S. federal government for technological achievement and innovation. Nominations for the 2021 NMTI may be submitted by members of the public up to July 30.

Information Technology & Innovation Foundation

Deepfakes, Disinformation, and Democracy

At 1:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

Partnerships spanning the public and private sectors have worked towards improving the accuracy of news through online sources in the face of growing threats from deepfake technology and disinformation spread via social media. This half-day virtual policy conference is hosted by ITIF in partnership with the Association of Computing Machinery, the U.S. Technology Policy Committee and the Online News Association and it will begin with a keynote address by Representative Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH). The first panel features a discussion on the state of deepfakes and disinformation online with Kathleen Carney, Director, Center for Informed Democracy and Social-cybersecurity, Carnegie Mellon University; Ashish Jaiman, Director, Technology Operations, Microsoft; and moderated by Deborah G. Johnson, Professor Emerita, Science, Technology, and Society Program, University of Virginia School of Engineering. The second panel features a discussion on the impact on national security, election security, and human rights with Henry Kautz, Division Director, Information & Intelligent Systems, National Science Foundation; Daniel Kimmage, Acting Coordinator, Global Engagement Center, U.S. Department of State; Gabriela Ivans, Head of Open Source Research, Human Rights Watch; and moderated by Daniel Castro, Vice President, ITIF. The third panel features a discussion on improving trust in online media with Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google; Joan Donovan, Research Director, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Dana Rao, Executive Vice President and General Counsel; and moderated by Alison Schary, Counsel, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

Center for Strategic & International Studies 

Hypersonic Strike and Defense 

At 1:30 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

One area of military technology which has benefited from increased research interest among top military leaders is hypersonic missiles, which can travel at speeds up to five times the speed of sound and can reach any target across the globe within five minutes. Recently, the U.S. Navy completed its first successful live-fire test of a prototype rocket motor that will be used to develop hypersonic missiles for both the Navy as well as the U.S. Army. This event will feature a conversation with Mike White, Principal Director for Hypersonics, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Following a short break will be a discussion with an industry panel including Erin Kocourek, Senior Director, Hypersonics Campaign Lead, Raytheon Missiles and Defense; Doug Graham, Vice President, Advanced Programs Development, Lockheed Martin Space; Lisa Brown, Vice President for Missile Defense Systems, Northrop Grumman; and Tom Karako, Senior Fellow, International Security Program and Director, Defense Missile Project.

New America

Building A Cybersecurity Clinic

At 2:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is well-known as a scientific research institution that is consistently developing solutions on the cutting edge of some of the world’s most nascent technologies including robotics and machine learning. This event, hosted by New America’s Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), explores MIT’s Cybersecurity Clinic model to show how institutions of higher education can train students and work with local communities to address the growing threat of cyber attacks on critical networks. Speakers at this event will include Larry Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, MIT; Stephanie Helm, Director, MassCyberCenter, MassTech; Jungwoo Chun, Ph.D. Student, Public Policy & Planning, Department of Urban Studies & Planning, MIT; Rebecca Spiewak, Master’s Student, Technology & Policy Program, MIT; and Avital Baral, Master of Engineering Student, Computer Science, MIT.

Brookings Institution

Can Biden’s Broadband Infrastructure Plan Close the Digital Divide?

At 2:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

In late March, President Joe Biden announced a major infrastructure initiative that would invest $100 billion into increasing broadband Internet coverage to reach 100 percent of the U.S. and improve competition among broadband providers to drive down consumer prices. This event, hosted by Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, will feature a discussion on the potential success and likely issues with President Biden’s broadband infrastructure plan with a panel including Keith Gabbard, CEO, Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative; Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, and Director, Center for Technology Innovation; Scott Wallsten, President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute; and moderated by Maggie Reardon, Senior Report, CNET.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

History’s Hand: Inventor’s Mind – Licensing the First U.S. Patent: Samuel Hopkins, Eli Cogswell, and the Inventor-Entrepreneur

At 3:00 PM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

This event is the first in the USPTO’s History’s Hand: Inventor’s Mind series that will explore humanity’s rich history of inventing and innovation, which contains insights on human ingenuity that can continue to inform the practices and philosophies of today’s modern innovators. This event is moderated by USPTO Historian Adam Bisno and will feature a talk by Dr. Arthur Daemmrich, Director, Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution.

Thursday, June 3

 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

 19th Rocky Mountain IP and Technology Institute

At 11:00 PM on Thursday, online video webinar.

This Thursday marks the first day of the 19th annual Rocky Mountain IP and Technology Institute, a two-day event hosted by the USPTO’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office in partnership with the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association, Stanford Law School, the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, the Copyright Society of the USA, and the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. This conference brings together experts from various areas of the U.S. intellectual property system to discuss important practice-area developments in IP law, e-commerce and licensing.

Friday, June 4

Information Technology & Innovation Foundation 

Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “Dynamic Competition”

At 10:00 AM on Friday, online video webinar.

Conventional antitrust enforcement is often triggered by industry events like a reduction in the number of competitive firms or the growing dominance of a single firm, but some policy analysts have advocated for a more holistic view of antitrust regulation which recognizes the relationship between innovation and competition. This event, the seventh in ITIF’s Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series, features a discussion with a panel including Ioana Marinescu, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice; David Teece, Executive Chairman, Berkeley Research Group; John M. Yun, Associate Professor of Law and Director, Economic Education Global Antitrust Institute, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School; and moderated by Aurelien Portuese, Director, Antitrust and Innovation Policy, ITIF.

Hudson Institute

Incorporating National Security in Federal Spectrum Policy

At 12:00 PM on Friday, online video webinar.

The use of wireless spectrum across the United States is an area of policymaking that continues to grow fraught with tension as technological progress allows both private commercial firms as well as public safety organizations to make greater use of mobile communication systems, forcing regulators to determine how best to allocate the increasingly finite resource of high- to low-band frequencies. This event will feature suggestions on how the federal government can best balance commercial competition with national security concerns and features a discussion with a panel including Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, Hudson Institute; Robert M. McDowell, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; and Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the Economics of the Internet, Hudson Institute.

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