Executive Biographies > General Counsel

James A. Toupin

James A. Toupin became the General Counsel of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in January 2001. He has executive responsibility for the Office of the Solicitor, the Office of General Law, the Office of Enrollment and Discipline, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

In this position, Mr. Toupin supervises the provision of legal advice and court representation on all intellectual property and administrative matters for the USPTO. He serves as a member of the USPTO Executive Board, Management Council, Executive Review Board, and Performance Review Board. Mr. Toupin also coordinates with the Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, and other agencies in developing the U.S. position on major intellectual property cases before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

In 1987, he was appointed Assistant General Counsel for Litigation of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), and subsequently to Deputy General Counsel. In those positions, he supervised defense of the Commission's actions in U.S. courts and international tribunals. The domestic court representation included defense of the Commission's determinations on patent and other intellectual property matters in the Federal Circuit and of the Commission's determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations in the U.S. Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit.

While at the ITC, Mr. Toupin assisted in the negotiations leading to the adoption of unfair trade practice provisions in the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization and the Dispute Settlement Understanding for the WTO Agreements. He subsequently represented the United States in proceedings under those Agreements. He has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the Court of International Trade, as well as of the judicial conference organizing committees of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Mr. Toupin began his professional career at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., specializing in intellectual property and unfair competition law and administrative agency litigation. From 1985 to 1987, he worked for the Washington office of the California law firm of Memel, Jacobs, Pierno, Gersh and Ellsworth, where he concentrated on international trademark registration and licensing.

A native of San Francisco, Mr. Toupin earned a bachelor's degree in with distinction from Stanford University, and a juris doctor from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was an editor of the California Law Review . He is a member of the California and District of Columbia Bars.

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Since 1790, the basic role of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries (Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution). Today, the USPTO is a federal agency in the Department of Commerce, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Through the issuance of patents, the USPTO encourages technological advancement by providing incentives to invent, invest in, and disclose new technology worldwide. Through the registration of trademarks, the agency assists businesses in protecting their investments, promoting goods and services, and safeguarding consumers against confusion and deception in the marketplace. By disseminating both patent and trademark information, the USPTO promotes an understanding of intellectual property protection and facilitates the development and sharing of new technologies worldwide.