Shira Perlmutter
Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs
Shira Perlmutter is the Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs at the USPTO. In that position, Ms. Perlmutter serves as a policy advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and oversees administration and support for all domestic and international IP policy-related operations; congressional and legislative engagement, as carried out by the Office of Governmental Affairs; education and training, as carried out under the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA); global IP leadership through administration of the IP Attaché Program; and economic analysis, as carried out by the Chief Economist.
Before joining the USPTO, Ms. Perlmutter was Executive Vice President for Global Legal Policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Prior to that, she held the position of Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy at Time Warner.
Ms. Perlmutter previously worked at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva as a consultant on the copyright issues involved in electronic commerce. In 1995, she was appointed as the first Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office. She was the copyright consultant to the Clinton Administration’s Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure in 1994-95.
Ms. Perlmutter is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at Oxford University, and a lecturer at King’s College, University of London. From 1990-95, she was a law professor at The Catholic University of America, teaching Copyright Law, Trademarks and Unfair Competition, and International Intellectual Property Law. Previously, she practiced law in New York City, specializing in copyright and trademark counseling and litigation. She is a co-author of a leading casebook on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy, and has published numerous articles on copyright issues.
Ms. Perlmutter received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
About the USPTO
Since 1790, the basic role of the United States intellectual property system has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries (Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution). Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a federal agency in the Department of Commerce, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Through the issuance of patents, the USPTO encourages technological advancement by providing incentives to invent, invest in, and disclose new technology worldwide. Through the registration of trademarks, the agency assists businesses in protecting their investments, promoting goods and services, and safeguarding consumers against confusion and deception in the marketplace. By disseminating both patent and trademark information, the USPTO promotes an understanding of intellectual property protection and facilitates the development and sharing of new technologies worldwide.
