Susie Armstrong

Susan M. Armstrong started at Qualcomm working on Globalstar and then early CDMA base station projects. She was a pioneer in bringing internet protocols to the cellular industry, resulting in the first web surfing on a cellular phone in 1997, and Qualcomm’s commercialization of packet data in 1998. Since then she has held various leadership positions, first responsible for the development and commercialization of the all of the software that drives Qualcomm’s chipsets, and then as the head of worldwide Customer Engineering. In addition to her work on Qualcomm’s inventions and new technologies, she has worked extensively with base station makers, carriers, phone and device makers in the US, Asia and Europe to bring those technologies to market.

In 2015, Armstrong has joined Qualcomm’s Government Affairs group, where she brings an engineering and product background the Government Affairs work in worldwide public policy, including intellectual property protection, cyber security, STEM and STEM diversity.

Explainer: A Brief History of the International IP Regime

Bu Julie Heng, Arrizka Faida, and Chris Borges In a globalized economy, businesses rely on rules protecting intellectual property (IP) to safeguard their ideas and products against counterfeiting, piracy, and theft and to forge international partnerships. To this end, the United States and its partners have long invested in a system of multilateral treaties and international
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ChinaTalk: Innovation Emergency with Trump 1.0’s Patent Director

On February 19th, CSIS Senior Adviser Andrei Iancu appeared on the ChinaTalk podcast to discuss how patents influence emerging technology innovation, how far AI and DOGE could push the current U.S. IP regime, if it matters that China issues more patents than the United States, and more. Listen to the
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Dr. Walter G. Copan – Congressional Testimony: The State of U.S. Science and Technology: Ensuring U.S. Global Leadership

On February 5th, 2025, Dr. Walter G. Copan testified before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on the State of U.S. Science and Technology: Ensuring U.S. Global Leadership. Copan, Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at the Colorado School of Mines, former Director of the National Institute
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