Slifer, Russ

Russ Slifer is the CEO of Black Hills IP and is also a registered patent attorney and principal of Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner. He has focused exclusively on intellectual property law since 1994 helping a wide variety of clients build patent portfolios to protect their innovations, including individual inventors, universities, and Fortune 100 companies.

Russ served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and trademark Office under the Obama Administration. As Deputy Director, Russ managed all day-to-day operations of the USPTO. He was also the first Director of the Rocky Mountain Region Patent Office, prior to his appointment as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce, serving as the agency’s primary liaison with the innovation community in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Prior to his government service, Russ was the Chief Patent Counsel for Micron Technology where he managed one of the world’s largest patent portfolios. Russ started his professional career as a design engineer for Honeywell.