President Obama picks DC attorney Danny Marti to be the next “IP czar”

President Barack Obama is nominating a new Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, known colloquially as the "IP czar." He is Washington lawyer Daniel H. Marti.

A longtime trademark and copyright lawyer, Marti, who is known as "Danny," is the managing partner in the DC office of the law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. The position coordinates US law-enforcement strategy around copyright, patents and trademarks. The coordinator's duties, somewhat controversial from the start, include harmonizing the enforcement activities of several federal agencies under the White House's Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement. The "czar" spot has been vacant since last August, when Victoria Espinel left the post. When paired with the long-standing vacancy at the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office, that has led to grumbling in some quarters that the White House hasn't been making a priority of so-called intellectual property issues.