Joyce Ward

Joyce is the Director of the Office of Education (OE) for the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  

Her work expands the influence of the outreach offerings of the USPTO to provide K12 educators and students with unique learning experiences and resources designed to integrate knowledge of invention, innovation, entrepreneurship, and STEM. Her office encourages the creation and protection of intellectual property. Under Joyce’s direct leadership the OE successfully conceived, and implemented numerous projects which have garnered national recognition for the agency, such as the Science of Innovation series, a collaboration between the USPTO, the National Science Foundation, and NBC Learn; the exemplar National Summer Teacher Institute on Innovation, STEM, and Intellectual Property(NSTI); an Intellectual Property patch with the Girl Scouts organization, and the first USPTO Inventor Trading Card series. Prior to her current position Joyce was the Director of Program Support and Intellectual Property for the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF).  Before going to NIHF, she served as a Trademark Examining Attorney and later as an Education Specialist in the Office of Public Affairs at the USPTO. Joyce received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.