Peter-Anthony Pappas serves as director of intellectual property policy for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Senator Thom Tillis – Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property (IP). He advises Senator Tillis on all IP matters (e.g., patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret), tech policy (e.g., artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.), antitrust, cybersecurity, and Judiciary Committee nominations, including Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Peter-Anthony previously served as a Professional Staff Member Detailee for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Senator Tillis – then Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on IP. Prior to his service in the U.S. Senate, Peter-Anthony served as Special Advisor Detailee to Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for IP and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), advising the Under Secretary on IP, artificial intelligence (AI), and agency operations. Most notably, Peter-Anthony helped develop the 2019 “Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance” (PEG), helped establish the agency’s first working group tasked with considering the interplay between AI and IP, and helped develop a framework for how the agency could leverage AI to assist with prior art search during examination. He has also served in several other USPTO roles, including Patent Trial and Appeal Board Branch Chief Detailee, Supervisory Patent Examiner, Primary Patent Examiner, and as a Patent Examiner. While at the USPTO, Peter-Anthony served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Subcommittee AI Research and Development Interagency Working Group and on the Department of Commerce Interagency Committee on Standards Policy (ICSP) AI Standards Coordination Working Group. Peter-Anthony has co-authored two papers with the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist – “Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTO,” which was published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and “Patents and the Independent Inventor Lifecycle.” These papers are based on the USPTO’s first randomized controlled trial (RCT), which Peter-Anthony created. The RCT served as the foundation for the creation of the agency’s Pro Se Pilot Program, which provided patent assistance to independent inventors and small businesses. Peter-Anthony has served on numerous IP and non-IP related boards and committees. He served on the Supervisory Patent Examiners and Classifiers Organization (SPECO) Board of Directors for more than a decade and for nearly five of those years served as Chairman of its Board of Directors. SPECO is a nonprofit organization that promotes the progress of its members and the U.S. patent system. Established more than 50 years ago and officially recognized by the USPTO, SPECO is composed of more than 400 USPTO managers and professionals. Peter-Anthony has also spoken at numerous domestic and international events regarding U.S. IP policy, law, and related legislation, and he has guest lectured at Harvard Law School, the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, and the George Washington University Law School. Peter-Anthony received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School. He is licensed to practice before the USPTO and is the third generation of his family to pursue public service.