Mark R. Powell currently serves as Deputy Commissioner for International Patent Cooperation, effective early 2014. Since early 2011, he had been on assignment to the Undersecretary and Director, focusing on a diversity of international issues, including worksharing and harmonization efforts. Mr. Powell began work at the USPTO in 1986 as a patent examiner in the area of high-energy physics, and became a senior examiner in high-definition television technology. In 1994, he became a supervisory examiner in what is now the main IT examining sector at the USPTO overseeing user-interface, artificial intelligence, source-code management, and computer graphics examination units. Mr. Powell served as a Technology Center Director from 2003-2011 in the telecommunications area, managing some 1,200 patent examiners, all while participating in international patent matters on behalf of the agency. During the years 2001-2003, he was on assignment to the US Department of State, Bureau of Nonproliferation, focusing on WMD issues in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Powell, a native of Mississippi, USA, holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from South Carolina’s Clemson University and a Certificate of Advanced Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York.