Today the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that Shira Perlmutter, the USPTO’s Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs, has been selected by the Librarian of Congress to serve as the 14th U.S. Register of Copyrights.
“The Library of Congress has made an outstanding choice,” said Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. “I and the entire USPTO team congratulate Shira and wish her much success in her new and critically important role. As one of the nation’s most preeminent copyright experts, Shira is extremely well qualified to lead the Copyright Office. I look forward to working with her and continuing the USPTO’s longstanding and close collaboration with the Copyright Office.”
Perlmutter has more than 20 years of experience working on copyright and other intellectual property (IP) issues, in a variety of public and private sector positions. Before joining the USPTO in January 2012, she served as executive vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of Phonographic Industry and before that as vice president and associate general counsel for IP policy at Time Warner, Inc. She is a co-author of a leading casebook on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy and has published numerous articles on copyright issues. During her tenure at the USPTO, she led the work of the Office of Policy and International Affairs in contributing to domestic and international IP policy development, represented the United States in negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), oversaw the USPTO’s economic research, international education and IP attaché programs, and managed the USPTO’s work with the United States Trade Representative on matters involving IP and trade.
“Shira’s work at the USPTO over the past eight years made a tangible and positive difference for America’s creators and innovators,” said Iancu. “In the coming days we will appoint an acting director to lead our Office of Policy and International Affairs, and we will share a timeline for our efforts to hire a permanent replacement.”