AI Inventorship Listening Session - East Coast

James Choi currently serves as Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society (JPTOS). He is a primary patent examiner in Art Unit 2881 (Radiant Energy). He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and is admitted to the Maryland state bar.

Christian Hannon serves as a Patent Attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA). Mr. Hannon’s portfolio encompasses standard-essential patent issues, policy issues relating to artificial intelligence, and policy issues relating to plant inventions. Prior to joining OPIA, Mr. Hannon has held various roles in the USPTO including the Office of the Under Secretary and Director, the Office of the Solicitor, and Patent Operations. 

Charles Kim currently serves as the Director of the Office of Petitions at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The Office of Petitions reviews and decides petitions, requests, and related inquiries, regarding the filing of patent applications, revival of abandoned applications, reinstatement of expired patents, withdrawal of patent applications from issue, small entity entitlement, review of previous decisions of the Technology Centers, suspension of regulations, and questions not specifically provided for by regulations.

Prior to working at the Office of Petitions, Charles served for two years as a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy. Charles also previously served as a Supervisory Patent Examiner in Technology Center 2100—Computer Architecture and Software.

Charles has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University and received his JD degree from George Washington University Law School. 

Thomas Krause is the Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property Law and Solicitor. He leads a team of litigators who defend the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the agency in court proceedings relating to intellectual property issues.

Mr. Krause has worked for the USPTO in the Solicitor’s Office since 2002, serving as Associate Solicitor, Special Counsel for Intellectual Property Litigation, Deputy Solicitor, and Acting Solicitor. In those roles, Mr. Krause has extensive experience defending USPTO decisions in federal court, briefing and arguing numerous patent cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, supervising district court litigation, and assisting the Solicitor General’s office in U.S. Supreme Court cases involving copyrights and patents. He also led the Solicitor’s Office copyright team and provided advice and guidance to the agency on copyright and patent issues.

Before joining the USPTO, Mr. Krause practiced patent law as Special Counsel with Covington & Burling, where he specialized in patent litigation and prosecution. Prior to that, he served as a judicial law clerk to Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

Mr. Krause graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high distinction in mathematics (B.S.) from the University of Illinois. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Krause served as an officer with the U.S. Navy on a fast attack submarine, and qualified as a Naval Nuclear Engineer. He received his Juris Doctor, with honors, from Harvard Law School, where he served as executive editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Jerry Ma serves as the Director of Emerging Technology at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), overseeing a comprehensive portfolio of artificial intelligence and emerging technology matters within the agency. In this role, Mr. Ma provides strategic and technical leadership toward ensuring that the USPTO deploys innovative technologies in service of innovators, and that the USPTO adopts forward-thinking policies to support new domains of invention and creativity.

Prior to joining the USPTO, Mr. Ma developed engineering and infrastructure agendas for global R&D teams, overseeing major initiatives resulting in the world's first public-domain superhuman Go bot and the first deep neural network to be trained on the known protein universe. Mr. Ma's scientific research has been published at venues such as ICML, ICLR, AAAI, PNAS, and S&P, and he has taught computer science & mathematics in undergraduate, graduate, and professional settings across multiple institutions.

Mr. Ma holds an A.B. in Economics and the Classics from Harvard University, and he is admitted to practice before the USPTO. 

Nalini Mummalaneni is a legal advisor in the Office of Patent Legal Administration. The Office of Patent Legal Administration assists in the development and administration of U.S. patent law, advises the USPTO on patent examination policy, and formulates new regulations, policies, and procedures regarding patents. 

In her previous role at the USPTO, Nalini served as a primary patent examiner in TC 2600 and examined patent applications in Telecommunications and Selective Visual Display Systems.  Prior to joining the USPTO, Nalini worked for 7 years at Nortel and Ericsson on 3G and 4G technologies. 

Nalini graduated from The George Washington University Law School, and she holds a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Dallas and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Nagarjuna University, India. 

Meredith Schoenfeld is an Associate Solicitor at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), where she serves as legal counsel on intellectual property law matters. At the USPTO, Ms. Schoenfeld defends decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, among other responsibilities. Ms. Schoenfeld is a founding member of the USPTO’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emerging Technology (ET) Working Group. This working group is comprised of AI experts from across the agency and has been responsible for several initiatives at the USPTO, including the issuance of request for comments, reports on AI and intellectual property policy, and the formation of the AI/ET Partnership, which was announced by Director Vidal in June 2022. Ms. Schoenfeld also acts a government liaison to the National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC).  

Prior to her position at the USPTO, Ms. Schoenfeld worked as a senior patent attorney at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and as an associate at a large IP law firm in Washington D.C.   

Ms. Schoenfeld is a graduate of Georgetown University Law School and holds a BSE in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.  

Matthew Sked is a Senior Legal Advisor in the Office of Patent Legal Administration at the USPTO.  In this position, he drafts rule packages, memoranda, and associated guidance to implement USPTO initiatives and comply with developments in patent law.  He has been involved with the development of policy in such areas as subject matter eligibility under Section 101, artificial intelligence, claim construction under Section 112(f), information disclosure practice, and the duty of disclosure. Before joining the Office of Patent Legal Administration, he worked as a Primary Patent Examiner in the speech processing and audio coding arts. Matthew received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2010. 

Kathi Vidal serves as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – America’s Innovation Agency. As the chief executive of the USPTO, she leads one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $4 billion. She is the principal IP advisor to the President and the Administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, and is focused on incentivizing and protecting U.S. innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity, and helping American workers and businesses compete and collaborate, especially in key technology areas and across demographics. As Director of the USPTO, Vidal is working to expand American innovation for and from all, including serving as the Vice Chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation (CI²), alongside Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo and the Council members.   

Prior to leading the USPTO, Director Vidal held top leadership positions at Winston & Strawn LLP and Fish & Richardson P.C. She has served a wide range of clients, from individual inventors and entrepreneurs, to some of our country’s most well-known and successful companies. Director Vidal holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, has five years of industry experience in manufacturing and design, and has deep technical expertise in a myriad of technologies, from consumer products to artificial intelligence. In her various roles, Director Vidal has received numerous accolades, created innovative initiatives and programs, and been recognized as a trailblazer and thought leader.  

Director Vidal’s full bio is available on the USPTO website.