Deputy Commissioner Bahr is an authority on patent laws, rules, and examining practice and procedure. He provides administrative oversight and direction for the activities of the Office of Petitions, Office of Patent Legal Administration, and the Office of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. He establishes patent examination and documentation policy standards for the Commissioner for Patents. Prior to his current position, he served as the Senior Patent Counsel to the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, where he was involved in virtually every patents-related rule making since 1995, including the changes to implement the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. Deputy Commissioner Bahr began his career at the USPTO in 1984 as a patent examiner, and became a legal advisor in the Office of Patent Legal Administration in 1994. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Maryland, and a J.D. from The George Washington University.