"That day, my life took a path toward IP and hasn't changed," says Kilpatrick DC managing partnerDanny Marti of his undergrad internship at the USPTO. But there has been a big change: He's now the first Hispanic person to head a Kilpatrick office. (And one of the first to get so much out of an internship.)
Danny istransitioning out of his previous leadership roles as intellectual asset acquisitions co-chair and diversity council chair, though he intends to carry over some of the diversity council planning and sensitivity training to his new post. Since taking on the DC MP role mid-March, he's been meeting with the office's 75 lawyers and 40 staff, and working on the office strategy and lateral recruiting. Growth areas include: regulatory, Native American, real estate, government contracts, and ITC.
We snapped Danny with mementos from some clients: American Eagle, Champion, Reebok, and Adidas. There's no time for a casual game of ball though: he's "neck deep" in dealing with gTLDs (those are alternatives to .com, with new strings to the right of the dot).ICANN, the organization that coordinates the domain name system, says it should let out the first batch of new gTLDs in the next few months. The process started last year with an application that hada $185k filing fee per string, and after other expenses could cost in the $500k to $1M range.After 2,000 applications--including several from Danny's clients--he expects a little more than halfto go live following contentions over names and other challenges.
We like to call these Sock Force One--they're the exact footwear worn by Bush 43. Danny did IP work for this cycling sock made by client DeFeet, and possibly saved the world by ensuring that the President didn't develop blisters while going for a ride.
Read a lot is Danny's advice to students who want to attend law school. We snapped this volume in his office to illustrate the point--a coffee table book about artist Alexander Calder. (Hanging across from Danny's desk isalso a rare Calder print, made in '76 for the National Air and Space Museum.) Like many book lovers, Danny's also a writer: he's moved from poetry to prose in recent years, and despite his law firm balancing act, makes time to write every morning.
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