50 most influential people in IP 2022: MIP recognises Joe Biden of the US government

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50 most influential people in IP 2022: MIP recognises Joe Biden of the US government

Joe Biden is the president of the US

Joe Biden.jpg
Joe Biden, president, US government

The US president hasn’t exactly been a popular figure among intellectual property professionals – and for good reason.

Joe Biden supported a waiver for the IP surrounding COVID treatments at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2021. The president’s support turned the waiver from a fringe project into a serious proposal. The waiver passed at the WTO this year.

On top of that, Biden finally secured enough support for his Build Back Better legislation – now called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – this year.

The act implemented some of the most radical changes to US healthcare law since the Affordable Care Act, and seriously undercut pharma IP rights in the process.

Signed into law by Biden on August 16, the IRA imposed a requirement on drug makers to negotiate prices with Medicare on selected products as of 2026, among other things.

Pharma counsel across the spectrum condemned the law. Innovators felt the IRA attacked the heart of the patent system, while generics argued that the legislation undermined their entire industry.

Under Biden, the US government also scrapped its policy on standard essential patents. The last policy, brought in under the Trump administration in 2019, was fairly pro patentee.

Rather than introduce a new policy that was more favourable to patent implementers, as was expected, the Biden administration threw the whole thing in the garbage, saying the move was the “best course of action for promoting both competition and innovation”.

Profiles for the 50 most influential people in IP 2022
View profiles

The list is in five categories, which you can navigate by selecting the appropriate section below.

19 Industry leaders
10 Public officials
9 IP authorities
7 Judges
5 Notable individuals
 
Joyce Ang is senior vice president for IPR protection at Lazada in Singapore
René Claude Metomo is the president of the Association of Penja Pepper Producers in Cameroon
Clemens Heusch is global head of dispute resolution at Nokia in Germany
Audrey Lee is general counsel at Starz Entertainment in the US
Shannon Thyme Klinger is chief legal officer at Moderna in the US
Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen are founders at Andreessen Horowitz in the US
Stephen Wurth and John Scott are legal counsel at Qualcomm in the US
Niall Trainor is senior director of brand protection at eOne in the UK
Juliette Rouilloux-Sicre is vice president of legal and intellectual property at Thales in France
Mattia Fogliacco is president of Sisvel International in Luxembourg
 
Jacob Rees-Mogg is the former secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy in the UK
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the former president of the United Arab Emirates
Edwin Tong is the second minister for law in the Singapore government
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the director general of the World Trade Organization in Switzerland
The investigation lead at the Spanish National Police asked to remain anonymous
Thom Tillis is a senator for North Carolina at the US Congress
Kerstin Jorna is director general of DG Grow at the European Commission in Belgium
 
Alexander Ramsay is former chair of the UPC Administrative Committee in Sweden
Insil Lee is the commissioner at KIPO in South Korea
Konstantinos Georgaras is CEO of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office
Shira Perlmutter is register of copyrights at the US Copyright Office
Kathi Vidal is the director of the USPTO and under secretary of commerce for IP in the US government
Christian Archambeau is executive director at the EUIPO in Spain
 
Colm Connolly is the chief judge at the District Court for the District of Delaware in the US
Orlando Garcia is the chief judge at the District Court for the Western District of Texas in the US
Len Stark is a judge at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the US
Suzanne Barnett was the interim chief judge at the Copyright Royalty Board in the US
 
Ankit Sahni is the owner of the RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App in India
Taras Kulbaba is a partner at Bukovnik & Kulbaba IP Guardians in Belgium
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