50th Anniversary

IPO was incorporated as a membership association 50 years ago — on January 25, 1972 – in Washington, DC.  IPO is thought to be the first association to use the term “intellectual property” in its name.  The founding companies retained William E. Schuyler, Jr., a nationally known litigator to serve as the first IPO president. 

Until 1980, the IPO board concentrated its limited resources on a public information campaign to improve the public image of patents and patent owners. In the 1970s and earlier, many patents were invalidated by the courts. 

Many legislative successes took place in the 80s including the Process Patent Amendments Act of 1988 – which made it infringement to import a product made by a patented process — and several battles over patent fees. During Donald Banner’s presidency, he and the IPO staff testified about 30 times before congressional committees.

In 1990, IPO returned to education for a year in a large way. IPO formed a time-limited subsidiary, The Foundation for a Creative America, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of America’s first patent and copyright laws, enacted in 1790.

The Board of Directors reorganized the association. The board decided to increase the membership and provide a much wider array of benefits to members.  From the beginning, the by-laws had called for the IPO president to be elected for a 2-year term, but the first two presidents, well-known former heads of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, were re-elected for successive terms, so that in its first 20 years IPO had only two presidents.

The first IPO Annual Meeting that provided CLE credit and was held outside Washington DC was in San Francisco.

The name of the association was tweaked.  IPO had been incorporated in 1972 as “Intellectual Property Owners, Inc.” Later the “Inc.” was omitted informally. In 2007 the name was legally changed to “Intellectual Property Owners Association.”  The logo “IPO” was well known, so the logo remained “IPO,” not “IPOA.” 

IPO government affairs representatives, guided by the board, worked for years on a series of bills that led to the America Invents Act (AIA) in 2011. IPO continued to monitor AIA-related legislation and rulemaking after 2011.  Legislative issues arose regularly in all areas of IP.