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Jon Dudas

American lawyer

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ6270638
Source-derived summary

Jonathan Ward "Jon" Dudas (born July 5, 1968) is the senior vice president, senior associate to the president and secretary of the University of Arizona. He previously served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) until January 18, 2009. He was nominated to the position by former president George W. Bush in March 2004 and appointed in July 2004. Dudas previously served as acting Under Secretary and Director, and Deputy Under Secretary and Deputy Director from 2002 to 2004. He is also a member of the board of directors of Conversant Intellectual Property Management.

Background and career

Dudas holds a bachelor of science in finance, summa cum laude, from the University of Illinois and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School, with honors. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar and the Bar of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Prior to joining the Bush Administration, Dudas served six years as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary, where he guided enactment of major patent, trademark and copyright policy, including the 1999 American Inventors Protection Act, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was also instrumental in the passage of the 1996 Trademark Anti-Counterfeiting Consumer Protection Act, a law making it more difficult for seized counterfeit merchandise to re-enter the consumer marketplace. Before his employment with the House of Representatives, Dudas practiced law in the Chicago law firm of Neal Gerber & Eisenberg.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Jon Dudas” as american lawyer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dudas, American and lawyer.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1968, 2009, 2004, 2002—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1968-07-05. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dudas, American and lawyer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Jon Dudas”, the useful work is to connect “american lawyer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6270638. VIAF identifies the subject as 58797083. The Library of Congress control number is no2004081966. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 2009, 2004 and 2002.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Jon Dudas”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jon Dudas primary sources, Jon Dudas archive and Dudas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jon Dudas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.