Jasemine Choy Chambers

Dr. Chambers is a Director in Technology Center 1600 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In this capacity, she oversees the examination of biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and organic chemistry patent applications. Dr. Chambers was instrumental in developing policies and procedures for the examination of patent applications directed to highly complex and high-profile biotechnology inventions such as gene therapy, transgenic animals, and expressed sequence tags of the human genome. Her other responsibilities include speaking for the agency on biotechnology patent issues at legal, industrial, and scientific conferences.

Dr. Chambers joined the USPTO in 1988 as a patent examiner. She served on a career development detail at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Patent Policy from 1993 to 1994 and was selected as a Supervisory Patent Examiner in 1996. In 1998-99, while on a Commerce, Science and Technology Fellowship assignment, Dr. Chambers worked as a Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her duties included development of science and technology policies, and policies relating to intellectual property rights in international research cooperation. In July 2000, Dr. Chambers was appointed to the Senior Executive Service as a Director in Technology Center 1600. In 2001-02, Dr. Chambers took a leave of absence from the USPTO and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Randall R. Rader at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She returned to her position as Director in September 2002. Prior to joining the USPTO, Dr. Chambers was a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institutes of Health from 1986 to 1988 and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Duke University Medical Center from 1982 to 1986.

Dr. Chambers has received numerous awards including a Gold Medal Award and two Bronze Medal Awards from the Department of Commerce, an Exceptional Career Award and an EEO Director’s Award from the USPTO, and an Outstanding Contribution Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association. She is a former Chair of the Asian American Government Executives network.

Dr. Chambers holds a B.A. with High Honors in Biology from Agnes Scott College, a Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from the Florida State University, and a J.D. with Honors from the George Washington University Law School. She is a member of the Maryland State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.