America Invents Act: "a brand new day"

Three top practitioners, Sharon Barner, Esq., partner at Foley and Lardner here; Darrell G. Mottley, principal shareholder of Banner and Witcoff and Phillip G. Hampton II, partner at Dickstein Shapiro are presenting an historic discussion of the biggest change in intellectual property law in 60 years during Innovation & Equity 2012: Capitalizing Creativity: Job Creation and Innovation, the 12th annual symposium for the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology.

As 50 Most selectees, they represent a previously unheralded set of milestones for African-American achievement in the arcane field of patent law, one of the underpinings of the modern industrial economy.

Barner, former deputy undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property during the first two years of the Obama administration; Mottley, the first intellectual property lawyer to head the D.C. Bar and Hampton, a former assistant director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, had front row seats for the development of America Invents, one of the few laws to gain bipartisan support during the past year.

Because of the impact of the new law on business growth, they've been passionately preparing their Innovation & Equity presentation during weekly conference calls to give African-American inventors the kind of up-to-date insight they typically do not receive on major economic policy changes.

"It's a whole new world," said Mottley, during yesterday's conference call.

Barner will lead the discussion on Jan. 15 with an overview of the major provisions; followed by Hampton on a review of how America Invents impacts defending intellectual property and Mottley with a presentation on the business implications of America Invents.