Regent Law Welcomes New Faculty Member Coke Stewart, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (August 19, 2021) – This week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that Coke Stewart, performing the functions and duties of the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO, will be departing the USPTO to join the faculty at the Regent University School of Law.
“We are excited to welcome Coke Stewart to the faculty at Regent Law,” said Mark Martin, dean of the Regent University School of Law. “Her unparalleled experience and expertise in the areas of intellectual property, patents, trademarks, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies will be a tremendous asset to the Regent Law community.”
Throughout her time at the USPTO, Stewart held a number of important roles, including Associate Solicitor, Acting Deputy Solicitor, Senior Advisor to the Director, Senior Counsel for Patent Law and Litigation, Senior Counsel to the Director, and Acting Chief of Staff. Most recently, Stewart performed the functions and duties of the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO. In addition to her work representing the Director before the Federal Circuit and various district courts, Stewart has been particularly active on a number of key policy issues, including patent eligibility, America Invents Act (AIA) proceedings, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, and inventor and entrepreneur resources.
Stewart has been counsel in over 50 cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing over a dozen cases as lead counsel. She has advised the Department of Justice Civil Appellate Staff and the Office of the Solicitor General on numerous patent, trademark, and copyright cases before the United States Supreme Court, including the most recent constitutional challenge to the appointment of the agency’s administrative patent judges. Stewart has also handled many administrative law cases for the USPTO, defending agency regulations and procedures in federal court.
During her government service, Stewart earned the highest performance rating of “outstanding” each year of employment and received several significant honors and awards, including five Special Act Awards, such as for her work supporting the agency during the pandemic and the Presidential Transition, a Director’s Award for Excellence in Litigation, a Department of Commerce Award for Exceptional Service (“Attorney of the Year” Award), and a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal.
Prior to joining the USPTO, Stewart practiced law for 14 years—most recently at Kaye Scholer LLP in Washington, D.C., litigating complex patent infringement cases on behalf of patent holders and accused infringers. Among other matters, Stewart participated in two patent cases culminating in successful jury trials, one in the Eastern District of Texas and one in the Eastern District of Virginia. The latter resulted in a jury award of $62.3 million and a finding of willful infringement, the eighth-largest jury verdict in federal court that year and the then-largest patent infringement jury award in Eastern District of Virginia. In pro bono matters, Ms. Stewart prevailed in two contested immigration trials in Arlington Immigration Court.
Stewart is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Virginia School of Law. In law school, she served as Executive Editor of the Virginia Tax Review and Editor-in-Chief of the Virginia Law Weekly. After law school, Stewart clerked on the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., for the Honorable James T. Turner.
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About Regent University
Founded in 1977, Regent University is America’s premier Christian university with more than 11,000 students studying on its 70-acre campus in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and online around the world. The university offers associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in more than 150 areas of study including business, communication and the arts, counseling, cybersecurity, divinity, education, government, law, leadership, nursing, healthcare, and psychology. Regent University, ranked among top national universities (U.S. News & World Report, 2020), is one of only 23 universities nationally to receive an “A” rating for its comprehensive liberal arts core curriculum.
About Regent Law
Regent Law’s more than 3,300 graduates practice law in 49 states and over 20 countries and include 38 currently sitting judges. The School of Law is currently ranked 22nd in the nation for obtaining judicial clerkships and ranked 20th in the nation for Ultimate Bar Passage in 2019. The school offers the Juris Doctor (J.D.) in three-year and part-time formats, an online M.A. in Law, an online M.A. in Financial Planning & Law, an on-campus and online LL.M. in Human Rights, and an on-campus and online LL.M. in American Legal Studies.
