Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP
David J. Kappos is a partner at Cravath. He is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost leaders in the field of intellectual property, including intellectual property management and strategy, the development of global intellectual property norms, laws and practices as well as commercialization and enforcement of innovation-based assets. Mr. Kappos supports the Firm’s clients with a wide range of their most complex intellectual property issues, including those pertaining to blockchain and financial technology (FinTech).
From August 2009 to January 2013, Mr. Kappos served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In that role, he advised the President, the Secretary of Commerce and the Administration on intellectual property policy matters. As Director of the USPTO, he led the Agency in dramatically re-engineering its entire management and operational systems as well as its engagement with the global innovation community. He was instrumental in achieving the greatest legislative reform of the U.S. patent system in generations through passage and implementation of the Leahy‑Smith America Invents Act, signed into law by President Obama in September 2011.
Prior to leading the USPTO, Mr. Kappos held several executive posts in the legal department of IBM, the world’s largest patent holder. From 2003 to 2009, he served as the company’s chief intellectual property lawyer. In that capacity, he managed global intellectual property activities for IBM, including all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection. Mr. Kappos joined IBM as a development engineer. During his more than 25 years at IBM, he served in a variety of roles including litigation counsel and Asia Pacific IP counsel, based in Tokyo, Japan, where he led all aspects of intellectual property protection, including licensing, transactions support and mergers and acquisitions activity for the Asia/Pacific region.
Mr. Kappos has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the field of intellectual property, including, among others, the 2014 Global Agenda Council Vision Award for the Intellectual Property Council’s pro bono initiative from the World Economic Forum, the 2014 Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association (NJIPLA), the 2013 Board of Director’s Excellence Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the 2013 Champion of Intellectual Property Award from the District of Columbia Bar Association and the 2013 North America Government Leadership Award from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). He was named one of the “Top 25 Icons of IP” by Law360, one of the “50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property” and the “Outstanding Practitioner of the Year in IP Transactions” by Managing IP, one of the “Top 50 Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers” and one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by The National Law Journal, “Intellectual Property Professional of the Year” by the Intellectual Property Owners Association and inducted into the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine in 2012. Mr. Kappos was also recognized as a leading lawyer by IAM Strategy 300, IAM Patent 1000, World IP Review, The Legal 500 US, Who’s Who Legal: Patents, Lawdragon, Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America. He is a frequent speaker and has authored many published articles on various intellectual property, innovation and leadership topics.
Mr. Kappos serves on the Boards of Directors of the Partnership for Public Service, the Center for Global Enterprise and the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation. He is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Naples Roundtable, and the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-China IP Cooperation Dialogue. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches copyright litigation, and Cornell Law School, where he teaches legal advising for the start-up general counsel.
Mr. Kappos was born in Palos Verdes, California. He received a B.S. summa cum laude in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1983 and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990.
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law and co-Director, Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, administrative law, and health policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools. Rai's research on IP law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has published over 50 articles, essays, and book chapters on IP law, administrative law, and health policy. Her publications have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Legal Studies, Nature Biotechnology, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation.
From 2009-2010, Rai served as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As External Affairs Administrator, Rai led policy analysis of the patent reform legislation that ultimately became the America Invents Act and worked to establish the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO. Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Rai regularly testifies before Congress and relevant administrative bodies on IP law and policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on IP policy issues raised by the research that they fund. She is a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and of an Expert Advisory Council to the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA). Rai is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the American Law Institute, and co-chair of the IP Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the ABA. Rai is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Strategies for Responsible Sharing of Clinical Trial Data and has served on, or as a reviewer for, numerous National Academies of Science committees. In 2011, Rai won the World Technology Network Award for Law.
Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a degree in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Rai's moot court team at Harvard Law School won Best Brief and Team honors at the school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition.
Professor of Law and Director, Intellectual Property and Information Law Program, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Saurabh Vishnubhakat is a Professor of Law and Director of the Intellectual Property and Information Law Program at Cardozo Law. He is also a Research Fellow at the Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy and a Senior Scholar at the George Mason University Center for IP and Innovation Policy. Previously, he held joint appointments as a Professor of Law and Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Professor Vishnubhakat’s expertise is in intellectual property, administrative law and federal litigation, especially from an empirical perspective. His legal writings have been cited in federal judicial opinions, agency regulations and over two dozen Supreme Court briefs. His latest work is published or forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington and Lee Law Review and the Iowa Law Review as well as the peer-reviewed Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
His research explores the interaction of the U.S. intellectual property system with federal courts and agencies, among other topics. With a background in the natural sciences, Professor Vishnubhakat brings a scientific mindset to legal thinking and is dedicated to teaching students how to build arguments with analytical rigor.
Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, Professor Vishnubhakat served in the United States Patent and Trademark Office as principal legal advisor to that agency’s first two chief economists. He was also a faculty fellow at Duke Law School, where he co-taught patent law and was a postdoctoral associate at the Duke Center for Public Genomics, where he researched law and policy issues surrounding innovation in genetics and biomedicine.
Professor Vishnubhakat holds both a J.D. and LL.M. in intellectual property from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He also holds a B.S. in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is admitted to the bars of Texas, Illinois, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP
David J. Kappos is a partner at Cravath. He is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost leaders in the field of intellectual property, including intellectual property management and strategy, the development of global intellectual property norms, laws and practices as well as commercialization and enforcement of innovation-based assets. Mr. Kappos supports the Firm’s clients with a wide range of their most complex intellectual property issues, including those pertaining to blockchain and financial technology (FinTech).
From August 2009 to January 2013, Mr. Kappos served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In that role, he advised the President, the Secretary of Commerce and the Administration on intellectual property policy matters. As Director of the USPTO, he led the Agency in dramatically re-engineering its entire management and operational systems as well as its engagement with the global innovation community. He was instrumental in achieving the greatest legislative reform of the U.S. patent system in generations through passage and implementation of the Leahy‑Smith America Invents Act, signed into law by President Obama in September 2011.
Prior to leading the USPTO, Mr. Kappos held several executive posts in the legal department of IBM, the world’s largest patent holder. From 2003 to 2009, he served as the company’s chief intellectual property lawyer. In that capacity, he managed global intellectual property activities for IBM, including all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection. Mr. Kappos joined IBM as a development engineer. During his more than 25 years at IBM, he served in a variety of roles including litigation counsel and Asia Pacific IP counsel, based in Tokyo, Japan, where he led all aspects of intellectual property protection, including licensing, transactions support and mergers and acquisitions activity for the Asia/Pacific region.
Mr. Kappos has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the field of intellectual property, including, among others, the 2014 Global Agenda Council Vision Award for the Intellectual Property Council’s pro bono initiative from the World Economic Forum, the 2014 Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association (NJIPLA), the 2013 Board of Director’s Excellence Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the 2013 Champion of Intellectual Property Award from the District of Columbia Bar Association and the 2013 North America Government Leadership Award from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). He was named one of the “Top 25 Icons of IP” by Law360, one of the “50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property” and the “Outstanding Practitioner of the Year in IP Transactions” by Managing IP, one of the “Top 50 Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers” and one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by The National Law Journal, “Intellectual Property Professional of the Year” by the Intellectual Property Owners Association and inducted into the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine in 2012. Mr. Kappos was also recognized as a leading lawyer by IAM Strategy 300, IAM Patent 1000, World IP Review, The Legal 500 US, Who’s Who Legal: Patents, Lawdragon, Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America. He is a frequent speaker and has authored many published articles on various intellectual property, innovation and leadership topics.
Mr. Kappos serves on the Boards of Directors of the Partnership for Public Service, the Center for Global Enterprise and the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation. He is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Naples Roundtable, and the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-China IP Cooperation Dialogue. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches copyright litigation, and Cornell Law School, where he teaches legal advising for the start-up general counsel.
Mr. Kappos was born in Palos Verdes, California. He received a B.S. summa cum laude in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1983 and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990.
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law and co-Director, Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, administrative law, and health policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools. Rai's research on IP law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has published over 50 articles, essays, and book chapters on IP law, administrative law, and health policy. Her publications have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Legal Studies, Nature Biotechnology, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation.
From 2009-2010, Rai served as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As External Affairs Administrator, Rai led policy analysis of the patent reform legislation that ultimately became the America Invents Act and worked to establish the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO. Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Rai regularly testifies before Congress and relevant administrative bodies on IP law and policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on IP policy issues raised by the research that they fund. She is a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and of an Expert Advisory Council to the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA). Rai is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the American Law Institute, and co-chair of the IP Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the ABA. Rai is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Strategies for Responsible Sharing of Clinical Trial Data and has served on, or as a reviewer for, numerous National Academies of Science committees. In 2011, Rai won the World Technology Network Award for Law.
Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a degree in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Rai's moot court team at Harvard Law School won Best Brief and Team honors at the school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition.
Professor of Law and Director, Intellectual Property and Information Law Program, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Saurabh Vishnubhakat is a Professor of Law and Director of the Intellectual Property and Information Law Program at Cardozo Law. He is also a Research Fellow at the Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy and a Senior Scholar at the George Mason University Center for IP and Innovation Policy. Previously, he held joint appointments as a Professor of Law and Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Professor Vishnubhakat’s expertise is in intellectual property, administrative law and federal litigation, especially from an empirical perspective. His legal writings have been cited in federal judicial opinions, agency regulations and over two dozen Supreme Court briefs. His latest work is published or forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington and Lee Law Review and the Iowa Law Review as well as the peer-reviewed Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
His research explores the interaction of the U.S. intellectual property system with federal courts and agencies, among other topics. With a background in the natural sciences, Professor Vishnubhakat brings a scientific mindset to legal thinking and is dedicated to teaching students how to build arguments with analytical rigor.
Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, Professor Vishnubhakat served in the United States Patent and Trademark Office as principal legal advisor to that agency’s first two chief economists. He was also a faculty fellow at Duke Law School, where he co-taught patent law and was a postdoctoral associate at the Duke Center for Public Genomics, where he researched law and policy issues surrounding innovation in genetics and biomedicine.
Professor Vishnubhakat holds both a J.D. and LL.M. in intellectual property from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He also holds a B.S. in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is admitted to the bars of Texas, Illinois, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.
President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation
J. Christian Adams is the President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He served from 2005 to 2010 in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice Voting Section. President Trump appointed Adams to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Trump also appointed Adams as a Commissioner to the United States Commission on Civil Rights where he also now serves with a term through 2025. He has been involved in election law lawsuits in 33 states and the territory of Guam. He has represented multiple presidential campaigns in election litigation. He has a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is a member of the South Carolina and Virginia Bars.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Texas Supreme Court
Justice Jimmy Blacklock was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in January 2018 by Governor Greg Abbott. Before that, Jimmy served as Governor Abbott’s General Counsel and in the Attorney General’s Office under then-AG Abbott. While at the AG’s Office, he handled appeals and trials of constitutional cases in state and federal court involving matters such as federalism, religious liberty, and the separation of powers. As Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel, he oversaw the Open Records and Opinions divisions of the AG’s Office. Earlier in his career, Jimmy was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and he worked in private practice in Houston and Austin. He clerked for Judge Jerry Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit after graduating from U.T.-Austin (B.A., Plan II/History) and Yale Law School. He was born in Houston and now lives in Austin with his wife and three daughters.
48th Vice President of the United States
Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence. As a young boy he had a front row seat to the American Dream. After his grandfather immigrated to the United States when he was 17, his family settled in the Midwest. The future Vice President watched his Mom and Dad build everything that matters—a family, a business, and a good name. Sitting at the feet of his mother and his father, who started a successful convenience store business in their small Indiana town, he was raised to believe in the importance of hard work, faith, and family.
Vice President Pence set off for Hanover College, earning his bachelor’s degree in history in 1981. While there, he renewed his Christian faith which remains the driving force in his life. He later attended Indiana University School of Law and met the love of his life, Second Lady Karen Pence.
After graduating, Vice President Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and began hosting The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana. Along the way he became the proud father to three children, Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.
Growing up in Indiana, surrounded by good, hardworking Hoosiers, Vice President Pence always knew that he needed to give back to the state and the country that had given him so much. In 2000, he launched a successful bid for his local congressional seat, entering the United States House of Representatives at the age of 40.
The people of East-Central Indiana elected Vice President Pence six times to represent them in Congress. On Capitol Hill he established himself as a champion of limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, educational opportunity, and the U.S. Constitution. His colleagues quickly recognized his leadership ability and unanimously elected him to serve as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and House Republican Conference Chairman. In this role, the Vice President helped make government smaller and more effective, reduce spending, and return power to state and local governments.
In 2013, Vice President Pence left the nation’s capital when Hoosiers elected him the 50th Governor of Indiana. He brought the same limited government and low tax philosophy to the Indiana Statehouse. As Governor, he enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana history, lowering individual income tax rates, the business personal property tax, and the corporate income tax in order to strengthen the State’s competitive edge and attract new investment and good-paying jobs. Due to his relentless focus on jobs, the state’s unemployment rate fell by half during his four years in office, and at the end of his term, more Hoosiers were working than at any point in the state’s 200-year history.
As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan in Indiana history. He made career and technical education a priority in every high school. Under Vice President Pence’s leadership, Indiana, known as “The Crossroads of America,” invested more than $800 million in new money for roads and bridges across the state. Despite the record tax cuts and new investments in roads and schools, the state remained fiscally responsible, as the Vice President worked with members of the Indiana General Assembly to pass two honestly balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings that were the envy of the nation.
It was Indiana’s success story, Vice President Pence’s record of legislative and executive experience, and his strong family values that prompted President Donald Trump to select Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. The American people elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence entered office on January 20, 2017.
In February 2021, Vice President Mike Pence joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow. The Heritage Foundation helped shape Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative philosophy for decades and played a pivotal role advancing conservative policies throughout the Trump Administration. Vice President Pence also joined Young America’s Foundation as the Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar. Long before Mike Pence became Vice President to President Donald Trump, the vision and leadership of Ronald Reagan inspired his youth.
Vice President Mike Pence remains grateful for the grace of God, the love and support of his family, and the blessings of liberty that are every American’s birthright.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP
David J. Kappos is a partner at Cravath. He is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost leaders in the field of intellectual property, including intellectual property management and strategy, the development of global intellectual property norms, laws and practices as well as commercialization and enforcement of innovation-based assets. Mr. Kappos supports the Firm’s clients with a wide range of their most complex intellectual property issues, including those pertaining to blockchain and financial technology (FinTech).
From August 2009 to January 2013, Mr. Kappos served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In that role, he advised the President, the Secretary of Commerce and the Administration on intellectual property policy matters. As Director of the USPTO, he led the Agency in dramatically re-engineering its entire management and operational systems as well as its engagement with the global innovation community. He was instrumental in achieving the greatest legislative reform of the U.S. patent system in generations through passage and implementation of the Leahy‑Smith America Invents Act, signed into law by President Obama in September 2011.
Prior to leading the USPTO, Mr. Kappos held several executive posts in the legal department of IBM, the world’s largest patent holder. From 2003 to 2009, he served as the company’s chief intellectual property lawyer. In that capacity, he managed global intellectual property activities for IBM, including all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection. Mr. Kappos joined IBM as a development engineer. During his more than 25 years at IBM, he served in a variety of roles including litigation counsel and Asia Pacific IP counsel, based in Tokyo, Japan, where he led all aspects of intellectual property protection, including licensing, transactions support and mergers and acquisitions activity for the Asia/Pacific region.
Mr. Kappos has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the field of intellectual property, including, among others, the 2014 Global Agenda Council Vision Award for the Intellectual Property Council’s pro bono initiative from the World Economic Forum, the 2014 Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association (NJIPLA), the 2013 Board of Director’s Excellence Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the 2013 Champion of Intellectual Property Award from the District of Columbia Bar Association and the 2013 North America Government Leadership Award from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). He was named one of the “Top 25 Icons of IP” by Law360, one of the “50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property” and the “Outstanding Practitioner of the Year in IP Transactions” by Managing IP, one of the “Top 50 Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers” and one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by The National Law Journal, “Intellectual Property Professional of the Year” by the Intellectual Property Owners Association and inducted into the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine in 2012. Mr. Kappos was also recognized as a leading lawyer by IAM Strategy 300, IAM Patent 1000, World IP Review, The Legal 500 US, Who’s Who Legal: Patents, Lawdragon, Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America. He is a frequent speaker and has authored many published articles on various intellectual property, innovation and leadership topics.
Mr. Kappos serves on the Boards of Directors of the Partnership for Public Service, the Center for Global Enterprise and the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation. He is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Naples Roundtable, and the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-China IP Cooperation Dialogue. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches copyright litigation, and Cornell Law School, where he teaches legal advising for the start-up general counsel.
Mr. Kappos was born in Palos Verdes, California. He received a B.S. summa cum laude in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1983 and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990.
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law and co-Director, Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, administrative law, and health policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools. Rai's research on IP law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has published over 50 articles, essays, and book chapters on IP law, administrative law, and health policy. Her publications have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Legal Studies, Nature Biotechnology, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation.
From 2009-2010, Rai served as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As External Affairs Administrator, Rai led policy analysis of the patent reform legislation that ultimately became the America Invents Act and worked to establish the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO. Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Rai regularly testifies before Congress and relevant administrative bodies on IP law and policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on IP policy issues raised by the research that they fund. She is a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and of an Expert Advisory Council to the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA). Rai is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the American Law Institute, and co-chair of the IP Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the ABA. Rai is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Strategies for Responsible Sharing of Clinical Trial Data and has served on, or as a reviewer for, numerous National Academies of Science committees. In 2011, Rai won the World Technology Network Award for Law.
Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a degree in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Rai's moot court team at Harvard Law School won Best Brief and Team honors at the school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition.
Professor of Law and Director, Intellectual Property and Information Law Program, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Saurabh Vishnubhakat is a Professor of Law and Director of the Intellectual Property and Information Law Program at Cardozo Law. He is also a Research Fellow at the Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy and a Senior Scholar at the George Mason University Center for IP and Innovation Policy. Previously, he held joint appointments as a Professor of Law and Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Professor Vishnubhakat’s expertise is in intellectual property, administrative law and federal litigation, especially from an empirical perspective. His legal writings have been cited in federal judicial opinions, agency regulations and over two dozen Supreme Court briefs. His latest work is published or forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington and Lee Law Review and the Iowa Law Review as well as the peer-reviewed Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
His research explores the interaction of the U.S. intellectual property system with federal courts and agencies, among other topics. With a background in the natural sciences, Professor Vishnubhakat brings a scientific mindset to legal thinking and is dedicated to teaching students how to build arguments with analytical rigor.
Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, Professor Vishnubhakat served in the United States Patent and Trademark Office as principal legal advisor to that agency’s first two chief economists. He was also a faculty fellow at Duke Law School, where he co-taught patent law and was a postdoctoral associate at the Duke Center for Public Genomics, where he researched law and policy issues surrounding innovation in genetics and biomedicine.
Professor Vishnubhakat holds both a J.D. and LL.M. in intellectual property from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He also holds a B.S. in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is admitted to the bars of Texas, Illinois, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.
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