About USIJ

We are the Alliance of U.S. Startups & Inventors for Jobs.

USIJ is a group of inventors, startup companies, venture capitalists, incubators, and research institutions who have come together in the interest of safeguarding our nation's innovation ecosystem.

The research and development that our companies and institutions perform has led to numerous breakthrough technologies in fields such as medical devices, mobile technologies, biotechnology, clean energy, and cloud computing. Our venture capital members and incubators have – for many years – founded and financed dozens of companies that have generated billions of dollars in value and created millions of jobs.

Why Join USIJ

Our Mission

We invent real things and create real companies.

We support efforts to strengthen the patent system in the United States. A strong patent system is integral to our innovation ecosystem and global competitiveness. We are committed to promoting a strong intellectual property system that supports innovation, investment, and breakthrough technologies that change our world. Our mission is to ensure this system continues to thrive for the benefit of American startups and inventors, and most importantly, American jobs.

Advisory Committee

Charlie Giancarlo

CEO, Pure Storage

Charlie Giancarlo

CEO, Pure Storage

Charlie Giancarlo has served as CEO of Pure Storage since August 2017. He has a three-decade track record of driving growth and innovation at leading global technology companies. Before joining Pure, Charlie served as Managing Director, Head of Value Creation and later Senior Advisor at Silver Lake Partners from 2007 to 2015, where he focused on business improvement and investment opportunities across strategic and operational initiatives for Silver Lake’s portfolio companies.

Prior to Silver Lake, for over a decade Charlie served in senior executive roles at Cisco Systems, including Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer. At Cisco, Charlie led Cisco’s multi-product growth, and was at the forefront of the Company’s R&D efforts for all product lines, with entry into new markets, including IP Telephony, WiFi, VPNs, TelePresence, and the SMB market.

Charlie received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Brown University, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Earl (Eb) Bright

President, ExploraMed

Earl (Eb) Bright

President, ExploraMed

As President, Mr. Bright has many years of technology development, company formation, and financing experience. He is an inventor, a founder of two companies, and has served on the executive management teams of five medical device start-up companies (Acclarent, NeoTract, Vibrynt, Moximed, and Willow), and one consumer electronic company (Nuelle). He was also the Director of Intellectual Property West Coast Operations at Guidant Corporation where he directed a nine-member team involved in the litigation and strategic development of over 1300 patent and trademark applications.

Mr. Bright's experience spans the years as a business adviser and patent attorney. He began his career as a design engineer for the F-16, F-22, and the A-12 aircraft.

Eb is an inventor on ten U.S. issued patents with others currently pending. He holds MBAs from Columbia University and UC Berkeley, and a Juris Doctorate and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Abha Divine

Co-Founder & Managing Director, Techquity Capital Management

Abha Divine

Founder, RPT Legal Strategies

Abha Divine is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Techquity Capital Management. Ms. Devine’s career demonstrates proven results in the successful planning and launch of new businesses and technology-driven offerings. She has been honored as one of IAM Magazine’s IAM 300, The World’s Leading IP Strategists.

Before Techquity, Ms. Divine launched AT&T Knowledge Ventures (KV), overseeing the worldwide IP portfolio for the AT&T family of companies. As president and chief executive officer, she led the organization to deliver measurable earnings-per-share impact annually, beginning in the second year of operation, and established AT&T KV as one of the leading producers of IP assets and revenue in its industry.

Previously, as SBC’s vice president of corporate strategy, Ms. Divine was responsible for the creation of SBC’s data networking, managed services and hosting businesses, as well as the restructuring of its consumer broadband strategy to achieve SBC’s broadband leadership position. In this role she led a team in defining and executing acquisitions, strategic alliances and buy-outs required for success in key growth areas.

Ms. Divine has developed significant technologies in product arenas ranging from video coding to personalized content delivery. She is a contributing author to Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Markets. Ms Divine earned an MBA from the University of Texas and an MSEE from MIT. She holds bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and applied mathematics from Southern Methodist University (SMU), and sits on the board of the Bobby Lyle School of Engineering at SMU.

Jeff Grainger

Partner, The Foundry

Jeff Grainger

Partner, The Foundry

Jeff J. Grainger is an intellectual property attorney and currently serves as a Managing Partner at The Foundry, a medical device incubator based in Menlo Park, California that has started numerous medical device companies over the past decade.

Previously, Mr. Grainger served as Vice President of Corporate Affairs and General Counsel of Xtent, Inc., a developer of drug-eluting stent systems which completed an initial public offering in 2007 (NASDAQ: XTNT). He also is the founder of First to File, Inc., a developer of software and services for automating patent process workflow. Mr. Grainger served there as Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the Board of Directors until the company was acquired by Mark Monitor, Inc. in 2002. Mr. Grainger has also served as Chief Patent Counsel of Heartport, Inc., a developer of devices for minimally-invasive heart surgery which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, and was an attorney specializing in patent prosecution at the law firm of Townsend & Townsend & Crew.

Prior to graduation from law school, Mr. Grainger served as a copyright licensing specialist at the British Broadcasting Corporation in London, and worked as a robotics engineer at Boeing Electronics Company.

Mr. Grainger is an inventor on more than 30 issued or pending U.S. patents as well as numerous foreign patent applications. Mr. Grainger holds a Juris Doctor degree with Honors from the University of Washington School of Law and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Laurie Hill

General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, Altos Labs

Dr. Laurie Hill

General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, Altos Labs

Laurie is an architect of practical solutions that foster bold innovation, a builder of diverse high performing teams anchored in courage, creativity, and curiosity, and a catalyst for growth that delivers results. She is a bold yet pragmatic visionary for possibilities that come from fusing the physical, digital, and biological spheres to sustainably grow economies and improve lives. She has led successful global legal teams at Genentech, Illumina, MedImmune, and Life Technologies. Laurie holds a JD from the University of Texas School of Law and a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Thomas Jefferson University. She was recognized as Luminary Leader by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association in 2020.

Chuck Hong

Co-Founder, CEO, Netlist, Inc.

Chuck Hong

Co-Founder, CEO, Netlist, Inc.

Chuck Hong is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Netlist, Inc., a publicly-traded semiconductor company headquartered in Irvine, CA. Netlist is a leading provider of high-performance memory technologies for servers and storage systems, and supplies its cutting-edge solutions to leading IT customers, including IBM, HP, and Dell. The Company holds the industry's largest portfolio of intellectual property in "Load-Reduced Memory" and "Hybrid Memory" – key technologies for AI and cloud computing infrastructures. Mr. Hong has been a strong advocate for reforming the patent system to safeguard smaller businesses from exploitation by Big Tech.

Before founding Netlist, Mr. Hong served as President of Infinilink Corp., a communications software company, and as Executive Vice President of Viking Components, Inc., a memory products manufacturer. He started his career at LG Electronics in Seoul, Korea, holding various management roles over a 15-year career at LG in both Korea and the U.S.

Mr. Hong earned his BS in Economics from Virginia Commonwealth University, which he attended on a D1 athletic scholarship. He also received an MS in Technology Management from the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University.

Chris Israel

Executive Director, USIJ

Chris Israel

Executive Director, USIJ

Chris Israel has served as Executive Director of USIJ since 2014. He specializes in supporting patent-intensive startups and venture investment firms. Chris previously served in the Administration of former President George W. Bush as Deputy Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Commerce and was appointed to serve as the first U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement in 2006. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating and leveraging the resources of the U.S. government to protect American intellectual property at home and abroad. He continues to be a frequent speaker on IP and innovation issues and was named one of the 50 “Most Influential People on IP” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine and one of the 2024 Global Strategy 300 by Intellectual Asset Magazine.

Gary Lauder

Managing Director, Lauder Partners LLC

Gary Lauder

Managing Director, Lauder Partners LLC

Gary Lauder is the Managing Director of Lauder Partners LLC, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm investing in various realms of the technology field. He has been a venture capitalist since 1985, investing in over 150 private companies, and is an observer or member of about 7 of their boards. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program, NYU Law School's Policing Project, and the Board of Governors of Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. In the 1980's, he worked at the venture firms of Aetna, Jacobs & Ramo Technology Ventures, as well as Wolfensohn Associates. He holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania; a BS in Economics from the Wharton School; and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the co-creator of the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society with Laura, his wife, and is a member of the inaugural class of the Aspen Institute's Henry Crown Fellowship Program. From time to time, he publicly advocates on subjects that are important, but misunderstood, primarily: 1) preserving and improving our patent system for the benefit of tech entrepreneurs who innovate in fields where patent protection matters, and 2) improving decision-making on transportation to alleviate traffic congestion. He is co-inventor of 17 patents, has spoken at over 150 industry forums, and, since 1992, has published several articles about the future of telecommunications and computing...that he still stands by.

Angela Macfarlane

President & CEO, ForSight Labs

Angela Macfarlane

President & CEO, ForSight Labs

As a Managing Member of ForSight Labs, Angela Macfarlane brings broad experience in early-stage company formation with the goal of creating a community where innovation, creative solutions, and "the doing" are combined to build value and create companies focused on improving the lives of visually impaired patients. Over the past ten years, ForSight has started six VISION companies, which have collectively raised more than $150 million – including Transcend Medical, Inc.; acquired by Alcon, ForSight Newco II, Inc.; acquired by QLT, and ForSight VISION5, Inc.; acquired by Allergan. Ms. Macfarlane currently serves as President and CEO of ForSight VISION4, Inc., a company revolutionizing how drugs are delivered to the back of the eye, in collaboration with Genentech/Roche.
Prior to joining the ForSight Labs team full-time, Ms. Macfarlane served as Chief Technology Counsel to The Foundry, a Medtech incubator. Ms. Macfarlane's previous experience also includes serving as Technology Counsel for Thomas J. Fogarty, M.D., a renowned physician/entrepreneur, where she participated in all aspects of early-stage technology review, licensing, intellectual property management,1111111 and company creation. She has served as part of the senior management team and in-house counsel at several medical device start-up companies, including TransVascular, Inc. (acquired by Medtronic), AneuRx, Inc. (acquired by Medtronic), and VidaMed Inc. (through IPO).

Ms. Macfarlane is an inventor on 25 U.S. issued patents with others currently pending. She received her BA in Business Administration from San Francisco State University, and her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law.

Bob Pavey

Managing Partner, Pavey Family Investments

Bob Pavey

Managing Partner, Pavey Family Investments

Bob Pavey is a highly respected venture capitalist with 46 years of technology investing experience across multiple industries. Bob is currently the Managing Partner of Pavey Family Investments, where he is an active angel investor and Board director. Bob was a founding partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, a firm that has managed nearly $3 billion and has invested in over 300 technology companies over four decades.

From 1990 to 1992, Bob served as President and Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). During his career at Morgenthaler, Bob was involved in many of Morgenthaler's most successful investments including Apple Computer, Applied Intelligent Systems (acquired by Electro Scientific), Atria Software (acquired by Rational Software), Aptis Communications (acquired by Nortel Networks), Endwave, Gliatech, Illustra Information Technologies (acquired by Informix), Intrinsa (acquired by Microsoft), New Focus, Synernetics (acquired by 3Com), and Synopsys.

Bob earned a B.S. in Physics from William & Mary, a M.S. in Engineering from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Laura Peter

Former Deputy Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Laura Peter

Former Deputy Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Laura Peter served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from 2018-2021. She was the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, and responsible for all agency operations. This includes oversight for the USPTO Regional Offices, managing 13,000 employees, and executing the policies, priorities and programs for an annual budget of $3.5 billion. She is an enthusiastic advocate and frequent speaker within IP Community on STEM, innovation diversity and intellectual property issues. Laura Peter is recognized by World IP Review as one of the most “Influential Women in IP,” Ms. Peter has practiced intellectual property law for over 25 years in leadership roles in the high technology industry.

She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Office of Research and Partnerships at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. She serves on the USIJ Advisory Committee in her personal capacity.

Laura received a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Cornell University and a master's in public policy from the University of Chicago. She also holds a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Master of Law degree in international business law from King's College, University of London.

Roger Sippl

Founder, Executive Chairman & CTO, Connected Cloud

Roger Sippl

Founder, Executive Chairman & CTO, Connected Cloud

Roger Sippl is a Silicon Valley software pioneer, entrepreneur and innovator. His 30 years of contributions have helped shape the enterprise software technology landscape of today. In 1980 he founded Informix Software, taking it public in 1986. Under his leadership, Informix pioneered SQL relational databases, report generators, screen data entry packages, 4GL application development tools, and scalable OLTP database technology. It is now a part of IBM, after surpassing a $4B market cap as a public company.

Roger was also co-founder and Chairman of the Vantive Corporation. Vantive became a leader in CRM and, as a public company, achieved a $1B market cap, and is now a part of PeopleSoft/Oracle. In 1993, he founded Visigenic Software, helping pioneer distributed object computing and the concept of the application server (based on CORBA, prior to the J2EE standard) in enterprises. Visigenic was acquired by Borland, after becoming a public company. After the Visigenic IPO Roger earned the “Golden Hat Trick Award” from Cristina Morgan at JP Morgan/Hambrecht and Quist for three Silicon Valley IPOs.

In the mid-nineties, Roger became a founding partner of Sippl Macdonald Ventures. He invested in several successful software companies, including Illustra (acquired by Informix), Broadvision (IPO), SupportSoft (IPO) and Red Pepper (acquired by PeopleSoft). In 2002, Roger founded Above All Software, a composite application platform that used web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Roger currently serves on the boards of WaveMaker (private), Elastic Intelligence (private), Filtini (private) and Interwoven (public IWOV), SolarWinds (SWI), as well as Fountain Valley School of Colorado Springs.

Bernie Shay

General Counsel, EarLens

Bernie Shay

General Counsel, EarLens

Bernard Shay joined EarLens as General Council in June 2015. Bernie is a veteran medical technology expert with over 25 years of experience with M&A, litigation, licensing, intellectual property, compliance, business development and engineering at a range of leading companies, including Miramar Labs, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric and IBM. Mr. Shay holds a BSEE and MSEE from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a JD, cum laude from Pace University.

EarLens Corporation is a privately held medical device company committed to providing hearing impaired patients a hearing solution that is designed to change the current standard of care for sound performance.

The company has developed the breakthrough EarLens Contact Hearing Device™, the world’s first hearing device to use light to transmit sound. The EarLens Contact Hearing Device is designed to transform the user’s own eardrum into a speaker, which enables delivery of an ultra-wide frequency range (from 125 to 10,000 Hz) and a higher maximum gain margin. The EarLens System is currently for investigational use only and is not marketed for sale. The company intends to seek FDA 510(k) clearance for the treatment of hearing impairment. EarLens Corporation is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Bob Taylor

Founder, RPT Legal Strategies

Bob Taylor

Founder, RPT Legal Strategies

Bob Taylor is the founder and owner of RPT Legal Strategies PC in San Francisco and Palo Alto, providing legal and business advice to companies and investors with respect to all aspects of intellectual property and related fields of endeavor. He serves as a Venture Advisor to New Enterprise Associates and as a patent law expert for the National Venture Capital Association.

For more than 30 years, Bob focused primarily on patent litigation, serving as lead trial counsel and/or appellate counsel in dozens of patent, copyright, trade secret and antitrust cases involving a wide range of technologies and industries. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a Lifetime Member of the American Law Institute.

Bob holds a J.D degree from Georgetown University Law Center and was a member of the editorial board of the Georgetown Law Journal during law school. He holds a B.S.E.E degree from the University of Arizona and was elected to Tau Beta Pi. He served in the U.S. Army and worked as an engineer for Motorola and for Bell & Howell before attending law school.

For many years, Bob has written and lectured on the business and legal problems associated with both intellectual property protection and the laws related to competition. For many years, he was the co-chair of the Antitrust Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association and until recently served as a Member of IPO's Amicus Committee. Bob also served as a member of the 1992 Commission on Patent Law Reform. He is a former chair of the Antitrust Section of American Bar Association.