The United States Patent and Trademark Office is getting closer and closer to the more progressive patent attitudes that dominate Silicon Valley.
Former Google corporate attorney Michelle Lee is the new deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Reuters reports. Lee will also serve as acting director until a new director is appointed, filling in for former IBM executive David Kappos, who stepped down from the USPTO in February.
Lee has been director of a USPTO satellite office since November 2012, according to Ars Technica. She left Google in June 2012.
Her top priorities as acting director of the USPTO will be working through the backlog of over 590,070 unexamined patents, and improving overall patent quality, according to Reuters.
Google has been one of the industry's most vocal companies in calling for patent reform, aiming to eliminate so-called patent trolls, outfits set on making money from patent litigation. But it's worth remembering that tech companies tend to grow more litigious with age. For example, Microsoft had filed only four patent suits in its entire history before 2010, but that year, the company sued Salesforce.com for patent infringement and began filing complaints against Android handset manufacturers such as Motorola. Microsoft has joined a consortium along with Apple and Blackberry that has filed another suit against Google.
Regardless, Lee says Google won't affect her decisions. "None of the policy positions of my former employers has guided my work," she told Reuters. "I certainly would be very welcoming of everybody's input."
Still, we can hope that having someone who has faced patent trolls at the helm of the USPTO bodes well for the future.
