Advocacy Highlights
For an overview of the Section’s advocacy initiatives, visit our advocacy resources page.
- Digital Replicas: The Section’s DeepFakes Task Force resolution was adopted by the ABA House of Delegates (HOD) at the February 2025 Midyear Meeting in Phoenix. Now the ABA will be able to testify before Congress, if requested, to encourage the enactment of federal legislation to prevent unauthorized digital replicas. This is a big win for the ABA-IPL Section!
- NO FAKES Act: In December 2024, the Section submitted letters to House and Senate congressional leaders to applaud their efforts to address generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) digital replicas issues through the introduction of the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act legislation. ABA-IPL noted that the bill “is an important step towards development of a national, uniform framework to protect an individual’s voice and visual likeness while balancing the public interest and many other related issues at stake.”
- Letter to the Presidential Transition Team on Intellectual Property Priorities: The Section sent a letter to Mar-a-Lago in early January 2025 requesting President Trump to prioritize the following:
- Appoint a new director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) who is a lawyer with experience in patent and trademark law, knowledgeable in both domestic and international law concerning these matters, and well-qualified to represent the USPTO domestically and to advocate U.S. positions on patent and trademark matters internationally.
- Fund the USPTO and the U.S. Copyright Office by allowing the USPTO to retain all revenue it generates and granting the register of copyrights increased budget authority and autonomy to continue modernizing the office.
- Encourage USPTO examiners to apply the test for determining eligibility for patent protection separately from considerations of whether the invention meets the validity tests of novelty, nonobviousness, written description, and definiteness.
- Focus on the integrity and reliability of the USPTO patent examination process to increase the confidence of the public, inventors, and investors in U.S. patent rights. Specific proposals can be found within our recent Section white paper.
- Withdraw the proposed NIST framework to the Bayh-Dole Act that would undermine research investment by threatening mandatory compulsory licensing, price controls, and regulating innovation.
- Support the passage of the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce (SHOP SAFE) Act to help curb the prevalent use of counterfeit trademarks in online commerce.
- Restore access to the domain name registration information in the WHOIS database so trademark owners can learn the identity of fraudulent registrants to rightfully enforce their trademark rights.
- Safeguard U.S. brand owners and innovators from foreign nations expropriating their trademarks and other intellectual property (IP) in violation of international agreements, even during wartime.
- Advocate for a strong national, uniform framework to prevent the unauthorized use of one’s voice, visual likeness, or image in a realistic computer-generated electronic representation, while respecting First Amendment principles and any impact on state, territorial, or tribal law; technological innovation and creations; and potential third-party liability.
- Provide IP owners the ability to block foreign websites that pirate audiovisual content.
- ABA Standard 206: Access to Legal Education and the Profession: The ABA-IPL Section’s DEI Working Group provided comments to the ABA Standard 206 proposed by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. A big thank you to Michelle Browning Coughlin for preparing the comments.
Mentorship
Malissa Magiera, Membership Board member and YLD liaison, led her second virtual panel on January 15, 2025, with current ABA-IPL leaders—Steve Caltrider, Lulu Wang, and Susan McGahan—to speak about their ABA and career journeys to young lawyers and, of course, offer some words of wisdom.
Education and Value
The ABA-IPL Section offers a wealth of expert content, educational opportunities, and practice resources aimed at furthering the IP profession.
- February 4–26, 2025: 2nd Annual Solutions for IP Legal Professionals: Following a successful boot camp last year, the Section held another eight-part series virtual seminar for IP assistants and paralegals covering the following topics, spearheaded by David Postolski for the second year in a row:
- IP Paralegal Outsourcing: Complimenting Your Expertise
- Balancing Innovation and Ethics: How Paralegals Can Harness the Use of AI in IP Practice
- Copyrights and the Internet
- The Foreign Associate Army: How to Best Manage Global Trademark Portfolios
- AI and Trademark Work
- USPTO Systems Training: Filing an Application in Trademark Center
- Unlocking Confidence: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Patents
- IP and In-House Workflows
- February 7, 2025: Annual Copyright Day at the Copyright Office was held in Washington, D.C. This meeting provided the opportunity to discuss office priorities, receive high-level updates on law and policy—including implementation of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act and the Music Modernization Act (MMA)—and learn about registration and recordation, IT modernization, and outreach and education. The event was held in a small intimate setting with Register Shira Perlmutter and her team. Thank you to Tammy Browning-Smith and Chris Katopis, who coordinated this event, and to Josh Simmons for presenting the welcome remarks.
- April 30–May 2, 2025: ABA-IPL Section Annual Meeting: This is the premier IP conference of the year, featuring more than 20 CLE sessions, networking events, wellness programs, business meetings, and more. A big thank you to Chris Ponder and Scott Alter and their CLE Board for putting together this programming, which will feature prominent IP leaders from AT&T, Disney, Microsoft, and Novo Nordisk. There are also great sponsorship opportunities. If interested, please contact Chris Martin, MCI.
- Fall 2025: Patent Prosecution Bootcamp: Seeing a need for a boot camp aimed at early career patent practitioners (first- to fourth-year associates), the Section has formulated a committee to present virtual seminars that will provide training and development to craft and draft winning patents by equipping participants with essential patent prosecution skills.
Accolades
When possible, I will recognize members of the ABA-IPL Section who are doing terrific work on behalf of the Section:
- Adriana Luedke, Bill LaFuze, Ted Davis, and Kira Alvarez, for presenting and getting approval of the DeepFakes Task Force resolution to urge legislation on unauthorized digital replicas at the HOD meeting during the ABA Midyear Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona.
- David Postolski, chair of the International Action Group (IAG), and his quarterly IAG Newsletter.
- Eileen Cole, for leading the Antitrust Interface Committee—both shepherding her fellow leaders and organizing programs (for example, she held a joint program of the Antitrust Interface and the Fashion Committees regarding the recent FTC action to preliminarily enjoin the merger of Tapestry and Capri Holdings).
- Paul Morico, Section secretary, for continuing to spearhead the policy dashboard and seeking a potential HOD resolution to present at the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto in the trademark or patent area.
- The newly formed Patent Prosecution Camp Committee, led by Maddie Vishwanathan and Brian Rosenbloom. The current members of this boot camp are Janet Hendrickson, Rivka Monheit, Matt Blackburn, Tammy Rhodes, MaCharri Vorndran-Jones, Jonathan Bowser, Rob Lytle, Paul Morico, Keisha Hylton-Rodic, and Stan Weinstein.
Join Us
Rob Lytle, chair-elect, is currently appointing ABA-IPL members to his new leadership roster for the upcoming term. If you are interested in taking on a leadership role, please contact Jill Charles. Your participation is crucial to building on our successes and growing our profession.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington, D.C., for our pinnacle action-packed CLE programs at the ABA-IPL Section Annual Meeting (IPLSPRING), April 30–May 2!
