Makan Delrahim, David Gooder and Others Appointed to New USPTO Advisory Committees

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced Monday that several new members have been appointed to the Office’s two key advisory committees, following the termination of all of the previous committee members by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in March.

In March, Lutnick ended all current appointments to both the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) and Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC), effective immediately. He was expected to appoint new members to both committees and move forward with public meetings by May 2025.

Both the PPAC and TPAC were established in 1999 when Congress passed the American Inventors Protection Act, with appointments and other governing provisions codified at 35 U.S.C. § 5. Section 5 provides that each public advisory committee will have nine members that “serve at the pleasure of the Secretary of Commerce.” When vacancies are created on either committee, those vacancies are to be filled within 90 days.

The statutory duties of both PACs involve reviewing the policies, goals, performance, budget and user fees of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with PPAC reviewing the USPTO’s patent operations and TPAC reviewing trademark operations. Along with advising the USPTO Director on these matters, both PACs prepare annual reports on their respective side of USPTO operations to the Secretary of Commerce, the President, and the Committees on the Judiciary in either house of Congress.

The previous members of the committees authored an op-ed for IPWatchdog in March expressing regret that their service was cut short and urging the incoming committee members to build on their efforts and focus.

The USPTO issued a call for candidates in late March, seeking recommendations for both committees. More recently, reports indicated that attorneys were getting worried about the empty committees.

But today, the new members were announced, and several names will be familiar.

According to the USPTO press release, Makan Delrahim, now a partner at Latham and Watkins LLP and the former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, will serve as the PPAC Chair. Tracy-Gene G. Durkin, a Director and Practice Leader of the Mechanical and Design Group at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein, and Fox PLLC, will serve as the PPAC Vice Chair. Professor John Duffy, who teaches torts, administrative law, patent law, and international intellectual property law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he is the Director of the Center of Intellectual Property, will also serve as a member of the PPAC.

The new TPAC committee members include David Gooder, a former Commissioner for Trademarks at the USPTO, and Courtney Laginess, the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at Worldpay, and former Assistant General Counsel–Intellectual Property at FIS.

There are still six vacancies on the PPAC and seven on the TPAC to be filled.