Bruce Lehman

Bruce A. Lehman (born September 19, 1945) served from 1993 to 1998 as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Lehman is noted for being the first openly gay man to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

In 1996, he served as the U.S. Trade Representative delegate to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on the December 1996 Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions.

He was appointed chairman of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the National Information Infrastructure Task Force for the Clinton administration and, on September 5, 1997, was appointed, on an interim basis, as acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He has also worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, as a partner at Swidler & Berlin, for 10 years; and as an officer in the U.S. Army. Lehman is currently a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

Lehman is president and chairman of the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), a non-profit, non-partisan economic development organization based in Washington, D.C. He is also a member of the Legal Advisory Council of LegalZoom. Since 2015, Lehman has focused on advancing the cause of visual artists rights. He serves as an advisor to the Artists Rights Society of the United States and the Association of Medical Illustrators. In that capacity he has filed amicus briefs on behalf of numerous visual artists organizations with the U.S. appellate courts and the United States Supreme Court and has drafted legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler that would establish an artists resale royalty right in the U.S., patterned after similar legislation in over 70 countries. Lehman resides in Sarasota, Florida where he serves as a board member of the La Musica chamber music festival.