Michelle K. Lee | |
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Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property | |
Assumed office January 13, 2014 |
|
President |
Barack Obama Donald Trump |
Deputy | Russell Slifer |
Preceded by | David Kappos |
Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office | |
Assumed office January 13, 2014 |
|
Deputy | Russell Slifer |
Preceded by | David Kappos |
Personal details | |
Born | 1965 (age 51–52) Santa Clara, California, United States |
Michelle Kwok Lee (born 1965, Santa Clara, California) is Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Michelle Lee built her own television as a child.
Lee simultaneously obtained a B.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1989; her master's thesis was on qualitative behavior and nonlinear circuits. She obtained her J.D. from Stanford University School of Law in 1992.
She was admitted to practice in California in 1992, and is a registered US patent attorney.
Before her legal career, Lee worked as a computer scientist at Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories and at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
She served as a clerk for two federal judges: Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and Paul R. Michel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Prior to joining the USPTO, she was an attorney with the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, and partner at Fenwick & West. She served as Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy for Google from 2003 to 2012. While at Google, she co-founded Chief IP Counsels (ChIPs), a networking organization for female patent attorneys.