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About C4IP

The Council for Innovation Promotion is a bipartisan coalition dedicated to promoting strong and effective intellectual property rights that drive innovation, boost economic competitiveness, and improve lives everywhere.

Goals & Objectives

Elevate the importance of strong domestic and international IP rights through a range of advocacy programs, initiatives, and campaigns.
Forge a coalition of pro-innovation stakeholders to serve as advocates within political, governmental, and non-governmental organizations.
Support government leaders who understand that IP is inextricably connected to innovation, and advance policies that support a strong IP system.
Provide an authoritative bipartisan resource hub for policymakers, the media, and the general public on IP-related policies and issues.

Leadership

Frank Cullen

Executive Director
Former Vice President of U.S. Policy, Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center

Frank Cullen

Frank Cullen currently serves as the Executive Director of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), a bi-partisan non-profit dedicated to supporting and promoting the intellectual property policies that support innovation and creative output.

Frank previously served as Vice President of U.S. Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he led the Chamber's domestic intellectual property policy work. He began his career in Los Angeles and was vice president for FCA Company, a full-service public affairs and government relations firm. In 1989, Frank was appointed public relations director for the city of Palm Springs, California, and conceived and implemented a highly successful promotional campaign featuring then-Mayor Sonny Bono. Subsequently, he served as director of Bono for U.S. Senate ’92. When Bono was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, he asked Frank to join him to direct his communications shop, a position he held until Bono’s untimely death. He then joined Rep. Mary Bono as her communications director. After one year, he was promoted to chief of staff, a position he held for 15 years.

An accomplished communicator and writer, Frank appeared as a guest on numerous TV and radio shows, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Larry King Live, ABC Radio, and CBS Radio. He provided political analysis and election coverage for KESQ TV, KMIR TV, and The Desert Sun newspaper. Frank also worked for legendary director Francis Ford Coppola at his Zoetrope Studios, and is a graduate of the University of Southern California, with a B.F.A. degree from the School of Cinema and Television.

frank@C4IP.org

John Cabeca

Chief Operations Officer
Former U.S. Intellectual Property Counselor for South Asia

John Cabeca

John Cabeca joins C4IP after a long and distinguished career as a senior leader at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). His nearly 36-year career with the U.S. Government is marked by his resilience and drive towards strengthening America's innovation ecosystem and advocating for robust IP rights globally. Domestically, he is recognized for establishing and leading the USPTO's Western Regional Office in Silicon Valley, where he worked closely with innovators and stakeholders on emerging IP policy issues. He also played a key role in shaping the USPTO's regional and national engagement strategies as its Deputy Chief Public Engagement Officer. Internationally, John served as the U.S. Intellectual Property Counselor for South Asia, based in New Delhi. As the principal U.S. diplomat on IP policy and enforcement priorities in the region, he advised U.S. ambassadors and government officials on foreign IP practices and encouraged stronger IP systems throughout the region. Earlier in his career, he also served on special assignment with the United States Trade Representative's Office (USTR), focusing on trade negotiations and IP priorities in the Asia-Pacific region. John holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Widener University.

Andrei Iancu

Chairman of the Board
Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2018-2021)

Andrei Iancu

Andrei is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell in Los Angeles. Prior to this, he held the position of partner at Irell & Manella from 2021 to 2023. From 2018 to 2021, he served as the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. As head of the USPTO, Andrei oversaw one of the largest IP offices in the world. He also served as the administration’s principal advisor on domestic and international policy matters. Among Andrei’s initiatives in this role was the creation of the National Council for Expanding American Innovation, a group of industry, academia and government leaders tasked with helping the USPTO develop a national strategy to broaden participation in the innovation ecosystem.

Prior to his government service, Andrei spent two decades at Irell and served as the firm’s managing partner from 2012 to 2018, the maximum allowable tenure. Andrei co-founded the Renewing American Innovation Project at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He previously taught patent law at UCLA School of Law, and he is a sought-after speaker and writer on issues related to IP and innovation. He received his J.D., M.S. in mechanical engineering, and B.S. in aerospace engineering from UCLA.

David Kappos

Chairman of the Board
Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2009-2013)

David Kappos

David is a partner at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore and Co-Chair of the firm's Intellectual Property practice. He is widely recognized as a leader in the field of intellectual property, including IP management and strategy, the development of global IP norms, laws and practices as well as commercialization and enforcement of innovation-based assets. From 2009 to 2013, David served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In that role, he advised the President, the Secretary of Commerce and the Administration on IP policy matters. David led the Agency in dramatically reengineering its entire management and operational systems and its engagement with the global innovation community. He was instrumental in achieving the greatest legislative reform of the U.S. patent system in generations through passage and implementation of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in 2011.

Prior to leading the USPTO, David held several executive posts in the legal department of IBM, the world’s largest patent holder. He served as IBM’s chief intellectual property lawyer from 2003 to 2009. In that capacity, he managed all global IP activities for IBM, including all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection and exploitation.

david@C4IP.org

Judge Paul Michel

Board Member
Former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (1988-2010)

Judge Paul Michel

Paul is a globally renowned leader in intellectual property law. From 1988 to 2010, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He discharged the duties of Chief Judge of this national court from December 2004 until his retirement. He also served as one of 27 judges on the Judicial Conference of the United States and, in 2005, he was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve on the Judicial Conference’s seven-judge Executive Committee. In Paul's more than 22 years on the bench, he judged thousands of appeals and authored over 800 opinions, approximately one-third of which concerned IP law.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, he was the associate deputy U.S. attorney general in 1978 and in 1981 became counsel and administrative assistant to Senator Arlen Specter. An influential speaker on IP-related policy matters, Paul has testified before Congress on patent reform legislation and served as Special Advisor to the Patent Reform Task Force. In 2012 he joined the Intellectual Property Advisory Council at the University of Akron School of Law. Judge Michel received his B.A. from Williams College and his J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Judge Kathleen O'Malley

Board Member
Former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2010-2022)

Judge Kathleen O'Malley

Kate is of counsel at Irell & Mandela in Washington, D.C. She is also a senior adviser for the Renewing American Innovation Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2010 to 2022, Kate served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the only court that handles appeals of patent cases. She previously served on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio from 1994 to 2010. Kate is the first former district court judge to be appointed to the Federal Circuit.

She regularly lectures on various IP topics, including the importance of IP to innovation and the importance of innovation to the economy. Kate has also trained judges, lawyers and stakeholders on the U.S. IP system in over a dozen countries across the globe. Kate is the only U.S. representative on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Judicial Advisory Council and has been involved in many WIPO sponsored projects and programs. She received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and her A.B. in Economics and Honors History from Kenyon College. Kate also earned an honorary Doctor of Laws from Kenyon.

Jamie Simpson

Chief Policy Officer and Counsel
Former Chief Counsel on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, IP, and the Internet and Associate Solicitor at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Jamie Simpson

Jamie L. Simpson was previously the Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. Before that, she worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee, handling intellectual property policy while on detail from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. At the USPTO, she was a senior advisor to the USPTO Director, handling critical policy issues, attending meetings with the Commerce Department and White House, and helping to coordinate the agency’s work. She started at the USPTO as an associate solicitor where she defended the agency’s decisions before federal courts and worked on some of the first cases to adjudicate the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. Earlier in her career, she was a clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and was in private practice specializing in patent litigation and licensing disputes. Jamie graduated from Harvard Law School, has an M.Sc. in Philosophy, Policy, and Social Value from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College. 

Peter Krug

Director of Outreach and Development
Former Senior Legislative Advisor for the United States Patent & Trademark Office (2018-2021)

Peter Krug

Peter has amassed over three decades of experience in policy issues, including intellectual property, from his time in the executive and legislative branches and the private sector. Most recently, Krug helped launch the Washington, D.C. office for the Los Angeles-based law firm Irell & Manella, serving as a senior policy advisor and office administrator. He was previously senior legislative advisor to C4IP board co-chair Andrei Iancu during Iancu's time as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Prior to that, he served as a political consultant for the U.S. Department of Commerce, overseeing the confirmation of five administration nominees, as well as a senior legislative assistant to Representatives Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Robert Dornan (R-CA). Krug's lobbying experience spans 17 years, primarily with D.C. telecom firm Wiley Rein, representing a broad spectrum of telecom-focused clients, including ATT, Verizon Wireless, National Association of Broadcasters, Sirius-XM Satellite Radio, Newspaper Association of America, Gannett, and Belo, among others. Notably, Krug was a lead lobbyist on Capitol Hill overseeing Sirius' acquisition of XM Satellite Radio. Krug received a Master's degree in International Affairs from the Patterson School of Diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Political Science and Foreign Affairs from San Jose State University.

Advisory Board

Steven Caltrider

Advisory Board Member

Steven Caltrider

Steve Caltrider serves as Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Office at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he advises on the complexities of a global patent landscape, including U.S. and foreign procurement, litigation, and licensing matters.

Prior to joining Dana-Farber, Caltrider served as Vice President and General Patent Counsel for Eli Lilly and Company before retiring after 34 years of service. He is the immediate past chair of the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property and is former chair of the United States Public Patent Advisory Committee (PPAC). In each of these roles, Caltrider has consistently demonstrated his dedication to enhancing intellectual property laws in support of innovation—a vital component for tomorrow's medical breakthroughs, as well as bolstering American prosperity and to nurturing the next generation of outstanding legal professionals. He frequently emphasizes the importance for IP practitioners not to stretch the limits of IP laws to their breaking point, but rather to advocate for clients zealously while upholding and fortifying the patent system's constitutional duty to promote the arts.

Caltrider received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University and a law degree, summa cum laude, from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.

Walter Copan

Advisory Board Member

Walter Copan

Dr. Walter G. Copan is Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at Colorado School of Mines, a leading U.S. research university, and Senior Advisor and co-founder of the Renewing American Innovation Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.

He previously served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and 16th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Copan is a distinguished leader with wide-ranging experience spanning large company, entrepreneurial tech startup, U.S. government, non-profit, and academic sectors. He earned undergraduate degrees and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Case Western Reserve University. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and was named 2020 Laboratory Director of the Year by the Federal Laboratory Consortium.

F. Scott Kieff

Advisory Board Member

F. Scott Kieff

The Honorable F. Scott Kieff is the Stevenson Bernard Professor at GW Law School, founder of Kieff Strategies, and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. After nomination by President Obama and unanimous confirmation by the Senate, he was Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-2017. He served during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations as an SGE in the SES in the national security defense-intelligence community as well as on matters of economics, innovation, and oversight and compliance.

He was previously a professor of law and medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis and a Senior Fellow at Hoover. A former law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Giles S. Rich, he is a graduate of Penn Law School and MIT, where he studied molecular biology and microeconomics. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012 and the Academia Europaea in 2024.

Keith Kupferschmid

Advisory Board Member

Keith Kupferschmid

Keith Kupferschmid is President and CEO of the Copyright Alliance, a position he has held since 2015. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Copyright Alliance’s operations—including strategy, government affairs, communications, membership, and liaising with boards and committees.

Kupferschmid’s extensive work on the Hill has contributed to modernizing copyright law, culminating in the enactment of the Music Modernization Act (MMA), the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act), and the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA), among others. He has also raised the profile of the Copyright Alliance within the creator community and strived to garner additional rights and protections for creators across the country through education, advocacy initiatives, and speaking opportunities. Kupferschmid has testified before Congress and various federal and state government agencies on key copyright issues, has held leadership positions in the American Bar Association (ABA) and American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), serves on the boards of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) and the U.S. Intellectual Property Alliance (USIPA), and was selected to be a member of the Library of Congress’ Copyright Public Modernization Committee (CPMC).

Before joining the Copyright Alliance, Kupferschmid served as the General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Intellectual Property for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) for 16 years. Prior to that, he worked at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; and the U.S. Copyright Office.

Etienne Sanz de Acedo

Advisory Board Member

Etienne Sanz de Acedo

As CEO of the International Trademark Association (INTA), Mr. Sanz de Acedo works with the Board of Directors and Officers to recommend, formulate and implement policies and programs for the Association; and is responsible for the administrative operation of the Association; the supervision of all staff; and the development and administration of the annual budget.

Previously, Mr. Sanz de Acedo was Head of Communications at the European Union IP Office (EUIPO). Mr. Sanz de Acedo holds a law degree from the University of Alicante, an LLM in European Community Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and an executive MBA from Instituto de Empresa Business School.

Stephen Susalka

Advisory Board Member

Stephen Susalka

Dr. Stephen J. Susalka is the Chief Executive Officer of AUTM, a 3,000+ member non-profit association, focused on supporting and enhancing technology transfer globally, and oversees a cooperative agreement with the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer to support technology transfer for more than 300 federal labs across the US.

As an international leader in technology commercialization, Dr. Susalka uses his experience in intellectual property protection, licensing, and company formation to educate, promote and connect AUTM members as they advance the next generation of ground-breaking innovations into the products and services of tomorrow.

A regular speaker on technology transfer issues, Dr. Susalka has frequently presented on Capitol Hill and internationally on topics ranging from start-up formation to the evolution of the profession. He has worked with senior leaders from around the world on strategies to enhance the commercialization of early-stage inventions and has provided testimony to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology on promoting best practices for intellectual property and technology transfer.

Before joining AUTM, Dr. Susalka served as Associate Director for Commercialization at Wake Forest Innovations where he was responsible for commercializing high impact inventions developed across the Wake Forest campuses.

Dr. Susalka earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Virginia and is a registered U.S. Patent Agent. He is a past Board member of multiple Wake Forest-affiliated start-ups and is both a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) and a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP).

Laura Peter

Advisory Board Member

Laura Peter

As Executive Director of technology transfer, Laura Peter provides visionary and strategic leadership for UNC Charlotte's innovation, research and technology commercialization activities. In this role, she supports and encourages university-wide programs for intellectual property awareness, development, innovation and engagement with business in the region, across the nation and around the globe.

Prior to her arrival at UNC Charlotte, Ms. Peter served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  She was the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, and responsible for all agency operations. This includes oversight for the USPTO Regional Offices, managing 13,000 employees, and executing the policies, priorities and programs for an annual budget of $3.5 billion. 

She is an enthusiastic advocate and frequent speaker within IP Community on STEM, innovation education, and intellectual property issues. Laura Peter is recognized by World IP Review as one of the most "Influential Women in IP," Ms. Peter has practiced intellectual property law for over 25 years in leadership roles in high technology corporations.

Laura received a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Cornell University and a master's in public policy from the University of Chicago. She also holds a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Master of Law degree in international business law from King's College, University of London.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laurapeter

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