U.S. patent chief headlines upcoming virtual discussion

In his role as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Andrei Iancu provides leadership and oversight to one of the largest intellectual property offices in the world, with more than 12,000 employees and an annual budget of over $3 billion. He also serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Commerce on domestic and international intellectual property policy matters.

Prior to joining the USPTO, Mr. Iancu was the Managing Partner at Irell & Manella LLP, where his practice focused on intellectual property litigation. Mr. Iancu has also taught patent law at the UCLA School of Law, and has written and spoken publicly on a variety of intellectual property issues. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Iancu was an engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company. Mr. Iancu holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, both from UCLA.

Jason Heikenfeld is VP of Operations at the University of Cincinnati Office of Innovation. He also directs the Novel Devices Laboratory, an internationally leading lab in electronic display technology, microfluidics, electronic paper, and most recently minimally invasive biosensing technology. In the first decade of his career,  Dr. Heikenfeld had already accumulated the most patents and licensees of any faculty member in the history of UC. He is a serial entrepreneur and in addition to his scholarly work, during his teaching years Dr. Heikenfeld was the highest-rated STEM educator at UC.