Bruce Lehman

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Bruce A. Lehman (born September 19, 1945) served from August 5, 1993 through 1998 as the United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. Nominated by President Bill Clinton on April 23, 1993, and confirmed by the United States Senate on August 5, 1993. During this short period of time, he was responsible for significant changes to the United States patent law.

Lehman's streak of successful changes was finally ended when he tried to move control of the U.S. Copyright Office from the Library of Congress to his department.

After leaving USPTO, Lehman founded the International Intellectual Property Institute, a non-profit, non-governmental organization.

[edit] Biography

He went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving a B.A. in 1967 and a J.D. in 1970.

He was named "Lawyer of the Year" 1994 by the National Law Journal.

In 1996 he served as the head of the U.S. delegation to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on the December 1996 Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions.

He also chaired the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the National Information Infrastructure Task Force.

James Boyle, an expert in intellectual property, has claimed that Lehman threatened to "destroy" him following the publication of an anti-whitepaper piece in the Washington Times criticizing the "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure" whitepaper, written by the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights.

Lehman was asked by the President on September 5, 1997, to serve on an interim basis as Acting Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

On June 16, 1997 he was named one of the 100 most influential men and women in Washington by the National Journal.

He has been legal counsel to:

the Wisconsin State Legislature
United States House of Representatives (nine years)
Committee on the Judiciary and Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, in the drafting of the 1976 Copyright Act, the 1980 Computer Software Amendments, and 1982 amendments to the Patent Laws.

He has also worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, as a partner at Swidler & Berlin (10 years), as an officer in the U.S. Army and is currently a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

Currently, he is President and CEO of the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), a lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., and is President of the U.S. Committee for the WIPO.

He continues to fight against submarine patents.