Danny Marti, managing partner of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton’s Washington, D.C., office, is the Obama administration’s pick as the next intellectual property “czar,” the White House said Thursday. The announcement drew praise from the technology and recording industries.
If confirmed, Marti, once cochairman of Kilpatrick Townsend’s intellectual asset acquisitions and transactions team, would become the second Senate-confirmed IP enforcement coordinator. Victoria Espinel stepped down in August 2013 to become president and CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance. After Espinel’s departure, Howard Shelanski, administrator of the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, assumed her duties, helping bridge the gap between the public and private sectors on IP protection in the absence of a confirmed IP enforcement coordinator.
