As the current under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the USPTO, David Kappos has overseen the introduction of the America Invents Act, the biggest change to patent law in the United States since the 19^th century. Since taking up the role in 2009, Mr Kappos has also overseen significant improvements to the USPTO’s IT infrastructure, and is working on reducing the application backlog and raising the quality of patent grants. Before joining the USPTO, he was vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property at IBM.