Thibaut Kleiner

Thibaut Kleiner is the Director for Policy, Strategy and Outreach at DG Connect. He has worked since 2001 at the European Commission. The first ten years of his career in the Commission were spent in the area of competition policy (merger, antitrust and State aid). He was notably member of the cabinet of Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for Competition, in 2007-2010 and head of unit for State aid coordination in DG Competition. In September 2011, he moved to the digital policy area, as advisor of Vice-President Neelie Kroes, in charge of the Digital Agenda, and supervised Internet policies at large (Internet Governance, cybersecurity, cloud, data). From January 2014 to June 2016, he was head of unit in charge of network technologies (5G and Internet of Things) in DG Connect. From June 2016 to December 2019 he was the deputy head of cabinet of Commissioner Oettinger, in charge of Budget and Human Resources and he then came back to DG Connect to head the unit in charge of Research Strategy and Coordination. An economist by training, Thibaut holds a Master from HEC Paris and a PhD from the London School of Economics.

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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