Andrei Iancu took over as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director a little less than three years ago with a promise to emphasize fairness and balance in the patent system.

To his many supporters among patent owners and their counsel, he's done more than that: He's restored a sense of enthusiasm around innovation and inventors. "He changed the dialogue on intellectual property," said Knobbe Martens partner Joseph Re. "Every speech he gave, he always gave at least one or two examples of the role intellectual property played in some technology."