Shira Perlmutter L ’83

Shira Perlmutter, L ’83, is the Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs at the USPTO. In that position, Ms. Perlmutter serves as a policy advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, and oversees the USPTO’s domestic and international IP policy activities; legislative engagement, through the Office of Governmental Affairs; education and training, through the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA); global advocacy, through the IP Attaché Program; and economic analysis, through the Office of the Chief Economist.

Before joining the USPTO, Ms. Perlmutter was Executive Vice President for Global Legal Policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Prior to that, she held the position of Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy at Time Warner.

Ms. Perlmutter previously worked at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva as a consultant on the copyright issues involved in electronic commerce. In 1995, she was appointed as the first Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office. She was the copyright consultant to the Clinton Administration’s Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure in 1994–95.

Ms. Perlmutter is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at Oxford University. From 1990–95, she was a law professor at The Catholic University of America, teaching Copyright Law, Trademarks and Unfair Competition, and International Intellectual Property Law. Previously, she practiced law in New York City, specializing in copyright and trademark counseling and litigation. She is a co-author of a leading casebook on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy, and has published numerous articles on copyright issues.

Ms. Perlmutter received her A.B. from Harvard University and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.