Featured Biography

Q. Todd Dickinson is the Executive Director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, a bar association of over 15,000 members and one of the world’s leading policy and advocacy organizations in the field of intellectual property. He has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of intellectual property, including having served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office under President Bill Clinton. Mr. Dickinson has also served as Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the General Electric Company, where he had corporate-wide responsibility for intellectual property matters, and as a partner in the Howrey, LLP. law firm, where he was co-chair of its intellectual property practice.

Mr. Dickinson has written and spoken extensively on intellectual property issues, and has testified before Congress, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Academy of Sciences on intellectual property administration and policy matters. Most recently he participated extensively in the debate and enactment of the 2011 Leahy-Smith “America Invents Act,” the most significant change in U.S. patent laws in over 60 years.

Mr. Dickinson has served as Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association and on the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association. He has been named as one of the “50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property” four times by Managing Intellectual Property Magazine, and in 2012 was inducted into the IAM IP Hall of Fame.

Mr. Dickinson earned his B.S. from Allegheny College in 1974, and his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1977. He is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.