Kathi Vidal

Kathi Vidal began her career working in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), software engineering, and circuitry. In April 2017, she became Silicon Valley managing partner and patent litigator at Winston & Strawn. Vidal was sworn in as the director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and as Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property in April 2022. During her tenure, she introduced an attestation process for hiring, requiring colleagues to confirm they considered a diverse pool of candidates, focusing on potential rather than past experience alone, and that they did not overly weigh the characteristics of the person previously in the position (for example, by looking for ‘another Bob’). This, along with rewriting job descriptions to remove unnecessary criteria, increased USPTO leadership diversity by 5% in one year alone. Vidal also founded Nextgenlawyers.com, working with judges and the USPTO to create programmes that incentivised arguments by junior lawyers. Additionally, when the data showed women were opting out of patenting at a higher rate than men, she implemented ‘welcome letters’ to support all patent applicants, encouraging women to continue with their applications. In December 2024, Vidal left the USPTO and rejoined Winston & Strawn, where she is now a member of the firm’s executive committee and a leader in the firm’s IP and AI practices. Vidal continues to advise on D&I from a legal perspective: Winston & Strawn has set up a DEI Compliance Task Force to help clients navigate the Trump administration’s new governmental regulations and directives targeting existing and past D&I programmes.