David Kappos, head of the USPTO.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office, affectionately known as the USPTO, will sustain a change in leadership in January.
David Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, will be resigning his position and moving on to greener pastures.
The Greek-American ran the USPTO since 2009 and with 25 years of experience in the intellectual property field, he will be sorely missed.
Many domainers use the USPTO to ensure no trademark violations are in place for domains they intend to register or acquire. Others – a small minority – do exactly the opposite: they register domains that match recent trademark registrations and attempt to sell those to the trademark holders.
This silly behavior is the reason why “domainer” equals “cybersquatter“, according to Wikipedia.
Kappos previously ran the patent department at IBM – a corporation that receives more patents than any other. Kappos has been more effective than many of his predecessors as a staunch, experienced believer of the patent system.
His successor has not yet been announced.
