Andrei Iancu (born April 2, 1968) is an American-Romanian engineer and intellectual property attorney, who served as the

under secretary of commerce for intellectual property The Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, or USC(IP), is a senior official in the United States Department of Commerce and the principal advisor to the United States Secretary of Commerce on the intellectual property matters. In t ...

and director of the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

(USPTO) from 2017 to 2021. He was nominated for both positions in 2017 by President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

. He left office January 20, 2021.

Early life and education

Iancu was born in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in in

aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...

, a Master of Science in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

, and a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. At UCLA, he was initiated into

Sigma Pi Sigma Pi () is a collegiate fraternity with 233 chapters at American universities. As of 2021, the fraternity had more than 5,000 undergraduate members and over 110,000 alumni. Sigma Pi headquarters are in Nashville, Tennessee. The fraternity ...

fraternity.

Career

Before entering law school, Iancu was an engineer at

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting p ...

, from 1989 to 1993. Following law school, in 1999, Iancu joined

Irell & Manella Irell & Manella LLP is an American law firm founded in 1941 by lawyers Lawrence E. Irell (1912–2000) and Arthur Manella (1917–1997). It has approximately 70 lawyers (down from a high of over 220), and placed 183rd on The American Lawyer's 20 ...

, of which he became the managing partner in 2012. His legal practice focused on

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

litigation. As an attorney, Iancu appeared before the

, the

United States International Trade Commission The United States International Trade Commission (USITC or I.T.C.) is an agency of the United States federal government that advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of trade. It is an independent, bipartisan entity that analyze ...

, U.S. district courts, and the

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals that has special appellate jurisdiction over certain types of specialized cases in the Federal judiciary of ...

. In 2006, while Iancu was a partner at Irell & Manella, the firm represented

NBC Universal The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

and

Mark Burnett Mark Burnett (born 17 July 1960) is a television producer who is the former Chairman of MGM Television, MGM Worldwide Television Group. He is best known for creating and producing the reality shows The Apprentice (American TV series), ''The Ap ...

in a copyright suit which alleged that Mark Bethea and Velocity Entertainment Group had originally pitched ''

The Apprentice ''The Apprentice'' is a Reality competition, reality talent game show franchise originally aired in 2004 in the United States. Created by U.S.-based British producer Mark Burnett, the show depicts contestants from around the country with variou ...

'' to the production team, under the title of ''CEO''. The case was "jointly settled out of court with an undisclosed settlement paid to Bethea" that year. Iancu is also a lecturer of

patent law A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

at his alma mater, the UCLA School of Law.

USPTO

Iancu was nominated by President Trump on August 26, 2017; approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 14, 2017; confirmed by the Senate 94–0 on February 5, 2018; and assumed the offices of Under Secretary and Director on February 8, 2018, when he was sworn in. In 2020, Iancu was in office during the sharpest declines and inclines of trademark applications in history. During Spring,

COVID-19 lockdowns Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions colloquially known as lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar societal restrictions) have been implemented in numerous countrie ...

led to fewer filings, which then increased in July 2020, exceeding the previous July. September 2020 was subsequently the highest month of trademark filings in the history of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

References

External links

* Presidential Nomination no
927
115th Congress, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. September 5, 2017. , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Iancu, Andrei Living people 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers Romanian emigrants to the United States California lawyers American patent attorneys Trump administration personnel Under Secretaries of Commerce for Intellectual Property UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni UCLA School of Law faculty UCLA School of Law alumni 1968 births