Santa Clara University School of Law’s Adjunct Professor, and former Senior Clinical Fellow, Professor Mary Fuller was appointed as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) regional director of the Silicon Valley Regional Office (SVRO) on September 19, 2023, with Fuller officially assuming office on September 25.
Fuller is a revered patent attorney, engineer, general counsel, and corporate counselor who founded the Fuller Tech Law in Silicon Valley. Her work in Santa Clara Law is centered on the School of Law’s Entrepreneur’s Law Clinic and Entrepreneur’s Legal Advising Clinic, both of which focus on cultivating students by allowing them to handle legal transactions of high-tech start-up businesses pro-bono.
The SVRO handles patent and trademark petitions from new and established entrepreneurs in the Western region. In addition to this, it also creates STEM education programs for students and teachers and builds avenues to entrepreneurial opportunities for current and aspiring business owners. The Regional Director role involves adapting USPTO’s programs and aims to the region’s diverse industries and stakeholders. Under this position, Fuller will be directly responsible for actualizing the formulated strategic plans by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and USPTO Director Kathi Vidal in the Western Region. Kathi Vidal asserted that Fuller “will be leading the team to help these innovators—from small business owners and inventors in Alaska to California and Hawaii—demystify the patent and trademark application and registration processes and bring their ideas to commercial success.
Fuller conveyed her elation as the new SVRO Regional Director in an article on USPTO’s website, “It feels like my path has led me to this position, and I am eager to hit the ground running in service to the Western Region’s innovation communities and to connecting more aspiring problem-solvers and local entrepreneurs with government resources to help them build value and power success.” When describing what this position means to her, she added, “being appointed to serve as the Regional Director of the Silicon Valley Regional Office of the USPTO is truly a dream come true. It is an honor and privilege to help innovators in our region realize their dreams to create something new.”
