November 2020

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 18, 2020—Santa Clara Law Professor Colleen Chien has been chosen to join President-Elect Joe Biden’s 20-person review committee for the Department of Commerce, which includes oversight of The United States Patent and Trademark Office. Agency review committees are tasked with looking at an agency’s operations to report to the new administration on issues they are facing, regulations or staffing needs, or industry trends affecting the agency.

Chien, an expert in intellectual property law, served in the Obama White House from 2013 to 2015, as Senior Advisor on Intellectual Property and Innovation to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, first Todd Park and then Megan Smith, in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Chien is widely known for her empirical scholarship on the patent system, earlier in her career focused on abusive patent litigation and patent “trolls” or patent assertion entities (PAEs), and more recently on patent quality and inclusion in innovation. Professor Chien regularly appears before Congress and executive agencies, in the last year she has testified about ways to ensure the consistent issuance of high quality patents, and how to advance inclusion in innovation. Professor Chien has also promoted the use of rigorous evidence in developing policy. She is founder of the Paper Prisons initiative (paperprisons.org) a research initiative that works to document and narrow the second chance gap between those eligible for and receiving second chances through early release (including clemency and compassionate release), criminal records clearing, and re-enfranchisement. She is a Fellow of the DayOne Project which seeks to curate actionable ideas for policy.

About Santa Clara University School of Law
Santa Clara University School of Law, one of the nation’s most diverse law schools, is dedicated to educating lawyers who lead with a commitment to excellence, ethics, and social justice. Santa Clara Law offers students an academically rigorous program including certificates in high tech law, international law, public interest and social justice law, and privacy law, as well as numerous graduate and joint degree options. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara Law is nationally distinguished for its faculty engagement, preparation for practice, and top-ranked programs in intellectual property. For more information, see law.scu.edu.

Media Contact
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Communications | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121