Brian Pomper Image

Brian Pomper

Executive Director

Innovation Alliance

Brian Pomper serves as Executive Director of the Innovation Alliance, a coalition of research and development-focused companies heavily engaged in patent policy debates.  He has served in that role since 2009.  He formerly served as chief international trade counsel to former Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT).  In that role, he was responsible for advising Chairman Baucus and other members of the Senate Finance Committee on all aspects of the Committee’s international trade and economic agenda.

In his current lobbying practice, Brian offers public policy, political, and strategic business advice to Fortune 500 companies and industry associations on a wide range of policy issues, including international trade and intellectual property.  He represents companies before Congress, the White House, and federal agencies on a diverse set of public policy matters, including advocacy and lobbying on domestic and foreign legislation and regulations; market access problems, foreign investment, and international trade negotiations and trade disputes; and intellectual property, international tax, and customs issues.  He also serves as an adjunct professor teaching international trade policy and politics at George Washington’s Graduate School of Political Management, and as an Educational Counselor for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.

He received a J.D. from the Cornell University Law School, clerked for Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and is a member of the U.S. patent bar. 

Recent Articles by Brian Pomper

Tillis Bill Would Restore Needed Clarity and Predictability in Patent Eligibility Law

Over the last 15 years, the United States Supreme Court has mutated patent eligibility into an impossibly complex and confusing mess. The Court’s current eligibility test strays far from Congress’s original intent, erodes trust in predictability, and has left many remarking that innovation in the United States is falling behind due to uncertainty of patent eligibility law. Even more troubling, the resulting uncertainty of patent ineligibility for large swaths of innovation in critical technology areas, including artificial intelligence, poses significant risks to U.S. competitiveness, economic growth and national security. The Court has had opportunities to rectify its patent sinkhole but recently declined another chance to mend the chaos. When the Court denied certiorari in American Axle v. Neapco—despite the Solicitor General’s plea to hear the case—it became clear that Congress must step in to rescue U.S. innovation.

America Needs a Chief IP Negotiator: Confirm Chris Wilson Now

The U.S. Senate might be the world’s “greatest deliberative body.” But it’s certainly not the quickest. For over a year, senators have failed to review and approve an uncontroversial nominee for a position that most Americans have never heard of—but one that’s immensely important to our economy. In 2015, Congress passed the late Senator Orrin Hatch’s Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, which created the position of Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator. Senator Hatch believed that intellectual property (IP) was so important to the U.S. economy that it deserved the focus of an ambassador-rank official charged with guaranteeing strong IP standards are upheld and enforced with global trading partners. He was right: IP-intensive industries support more than 62 million American jobs, nearly half of all U.S. employment.