February 22nd, 2018 The Honorable Andrei Iancu Director United States Patent and Trademark Office 600 Dulany Street Alexandria, VA 22314 Dear Director Iancu: We would like to extend our congratulations on your Senate confirmation and your new position as head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). USPTO plays an integral role in promoting innovation, competition and creativity, and we look forward to working with you and your staff on issues important to our industries, including geographical indications (GIs) and other IP-related concerns. We are concerned that internal changes USPTO may be contemplating would disrupt USPTO’s ability to effectively tackle these concerns and represent America’s policy interests as they relate to these issues. As just one example, the consistent collaboration with USPTO’s overseas attachés and US-based policy team has been a key factor in USPTO’s ability to educate foreign governments on GI issues; it is not clear how proposed changes could impact this team’s prioritization of that topic or its ability to ensure that overseas actions are fully informed by and consistent with policy positions taken by USPTO’s headquarters staff. We have a long history of working very closely with the Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA) and view these skilled staff members as expert allies in advancing our shared goals to reduce trade barriers in foreign markets and curb predatory efforts by foreign competitors. Specifically, USPTO’s OPIA staff has been essential to our goal of defending the long-standing U.S. policy of American companies’ use of common food terms, such as parmesan, bologna and vintage. Under the guise of GIs, the European Union (EU)

continues its egregious efforts to monopolize use of these terms in its trade negotiations and with international organizations to the detriment of American farmers, processors and other businesses. Additionally, specific EU GI interests have been probing the U.S. trademark system with the goal of intentionally seeking to register trademarks for terms that have long been widely used here. That approach is designed to misappropriate those terms and grant them exclusive rights to use what have long been generic terms used widely here in the U.S. To combat these threats to U.S. businesses and jobs, as well as the integrity of IP principles, the OPIA staff members have spoken around the world on these topics. They have met with key government officials in target export markets, collaborated with industry to hold workshops to educate foreign policymakers and U.S. companies, influenced trade negotiations on GIs in positive ways and shaped inter-agency strategies to respond to brewing restrictions in specific countries. We look forward to continuing to work on this issue under your leadership and to collaborate on ways to improve how USPTO deals with bad-faith trademark applications being filed by foreign competitors. We also want to work with you on strengthening USPTO’s ability to ensure that those bad-faith efforts do not succeed in undermining our critically important IP system. With respect to this latter goal, we plan to share with USPTO in the near future a number of targeted recommendations to address this risk and uphold the integrity of the U.S. trademark system’s ability to balance the needs of good-faith rights holders with the needs of companies relying upon the ability to continue to use generic terms. We appreciate your commitment to strong leadership on IP policy and ask that you keep these concerns in mind as you evaluate how to best structure USPTO resources for efficiency and effectiveness. Thank you for the opportunity to express our views on these critically important issues. We look forward to working with you in your new role. Sincerely, American Farm Bureau Federation Consortium for Common Food Names Grocery Manufacturers Association International Dairy Foods Association National Council of Farmer Cooperatives National Milk Producers Federation North American Meat Institute U.S. Dairy Export Council USA Rice Wine Institute

cc: TheHonorableThadCochran,Chairman,SenateCommitteeonAppropriationsTheHonorableRodneyP.Frelinghuysen,Chairman,HouseCommitteeonAppropriationsTheHonorableBobGoodlatte,Chairman,HouseJudiciaryCommitteeTheHonorableCharlesGrassley,Chairman,SenateCommitteeontheJudiciaryTheHonorableJerroldNadler,RankingMember,HouseJudiciaryCommitteeTheHonorableDianneFeinstein,RankingMember,SenateCommitteeontheJudiciaryTheHonorablePatrickLeahy,RankingMember,SenateCommitteeonAppropriationsTheHonorableNitaM.Lowey,RankingMember,HouseCommitteeonAppropriations