“It’s a national imperative that we focus on bringing everyone into the system. Every country is focused on this. We are leading, but they will learn from us, and if we don’t keep the pedal to the metal, we’ll fall behind.” – Director Kathi Vidal
IPWatchdog COO, Renee Quinn (left) with USPTO Director Kathi Vidal
On day one of IPWatchdog’s inaugural Women’s IP Forum, which was also National Women’s Equality Day, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal shared her insights for women seeking to move into leadership positions in IP and the challenges she’s had to face along the way, both personally and professionally—from being told she shouldn’t play guitar or drums at age seven to redirecting (and even harnessing) misogynist comments and bullies she has encountered along the way.
Vidal was speaking with IPWatchdog’s Chief Operating Officer, Renee Quinn, who asked Vidal about both her personal and policy reasons for focusing so firmly on diversity in IP during her tenure. Vidal explained that while her commitment to promoting women in leadership started when she was told she couldn’t play guitar or drums because they were for boys, since she’s been in the Administration, her concerns have also turned to the future of the United States. “We have to stay in front of things,” Vidal said, noting that the Office has increased diversity of leadership by 5% in just one year.
“It’s a national imperative that we focus on bringing everyone into the system. Every country is focused on this. We are leading, but they will learn from us, and if we don’t keep the pedal to the metal, we’ll fall behind.”
In addition to the Office’s efforts to expand the patent bar, Vidal has been focused on implementing a National Strategy for Inclusive Innovation, which “aims to lift communities, grow the economy, create quality jobs, and address global challenges by increasing participation in STEM, inventorship and innovation among youth and those from historically underrepresented and underresourced communities.”
Vidal also addressed agency challenges she is focused on at the USPTO, such as rethinking the structure of the patents department, being an integral part of policy discussions across U.S. government with IP in mind, pendency, and IT improvements.
Vidal published a Director’s blog post in July addressing the Office’s current backlog of patent and trademark applications in which she said that “unpredictable macro effects, including a pandemic that had an outsized impact on our application inventories, have created an ‘inherited backlog’ of both patent and trademark applications.”
“Pendency is a challenge,” Vidal said today, adding that “there were decisions made in 2019 that put our backlog on a linear trajectory upward.” She said the Office is attacking that problem through hiring to the tune of 1,600 patent examiners in FY2025, according to Elizabeth Dougherty, USPTO Regional Outreach Director, Eastern Regional Office, who participated in a later panel on Monday.
Asked what advice she would give herself at the start of her term as Director if she had the knowledge she does today, Vidal said she wasn’t quite prepared for the personal attacks she would have to contend with. She recounted how, soon after being appointed, one of the first comments she remembers seeing on an article about her had to do with her weight. While Vidal mentioned that she tries to spin such negative comments as positive–for instance, IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn noted that such remarks signal the source must have no substantive criticism to make–she said “we need to do a better job of creating a culture where that’s just not acceptable. I wish we could do something as a community to solve for that.”
As for her words of wisdom to younger women looking to move into IP leadership positions, Vidal said, “I will say, I’m an optimist.” She told attendees to “wake up with hope and surround yourself with positive people.” She also said that women in particular need to transcend the “ask bias” in order to ask more aggressively for the things they need. “Men asked me all the time if I would promote them when I was in leadership,” Vidal said. “Think about the ask bias and come up with a way to ask that’s authentic to you.”
IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum is being held Monday and Tuesday this week and also features panels on topics such as counterfeiting, patent valuation, AI, tech transfer, networking opportunities, and much more.
