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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 248 / Thursday, December 30, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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should be required to appear at hearings on the merits; whether the supervising attorneys appearance should also be required at conferences; and whether documents submitted to the CCB must be signed by both the supervising attorney and the law student representative.
B. Law School Clinic Directory The proposed rule provides for the creation of a public directory of law school clinics actively accepting clients for CCB representation. The Office anticipates that there will be a large number of pro se i.e., self-represented participants in CCB proceedings who are appearing before an adjudicatory body for the first time. While the goal of the CCB is to provide streamlined, easy-to-understand proceedings, such that parties may appear without an attorney,25 the Office wants to ensure that participants have as much access to available resources and legal support as possible. To that end, the proposed rule provides the opportunity for law school clinics to self-identify when they are available to represent clients before the CCB. The directory will include contact information for, and the geographic availability of, the clinic; the nature of the clinics experience with copyright and litigation matters; and a description of the clinics interest in handling CCB
matters. Requiring this information for directory inclusion is intended to provide participants the means of making an informed decision regarding possible law student representation. The Office will make this information publicly available on the condition that the clinic certifies that its students are eligible to practice before the CCB and provides the required information to assist a participant in evaluating whether representation is available and appropriate. Clinics will have a duty to keep their information up to date, and a listing may be removed at the CCBs discretion.
The CASE Acts legislative history suggests that the Office look to the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Offices Law School Clinic Certification Program USPTO Program when considering how to encourage law student representation before the CCB.26 The USPTO Program consists of a complex multi-year process that requires an application by an interested law school clinic, review and acceptance into the program, USPTO monitoring over a 25 17 U.S.C. 1506d noting that parties may be represented, but representation is not required; see H.R. Rep. No. 116252, at 17 Parties may appear pro se.; S. Rep. No. 116105 at 4 noting that parties may wish to proceed pro se.
26 S. Rep. No. 116105 at 4.

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training year, and reporting and renewal requirements.27 The USPTO Program has grown since it was established in 2008, and now over sixty clinics in approximately thirty states are certified to have law students appear before the USPTO.28 The program is run by five designated legal staff members within the USPTOs Office of Enrollment and Discipline.29 The majority of the clinics in the USPTO Program represent applicants seeking patent or trademark registrations, and not parties involved in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Given the fact that practice before the CCB does not require the same type of technical expertise, the Office has adopted those aspects of the USPTO Program that are appropriate for the CCB. In light of the CCBs overall obligations in commencing operations, the Office has proposed a program which is feasible in light of its currently available resources. In the interest of making pro bono resources widely known and easily accessible, the Office proposes gathering information similar to information acquired through the USPTO Program 30 and making it publicly available for participants to review and assess. The Office believes that the proposed requirements would allow new clinics located in areas where there are fewer legal resources to participate in the CCBs program, and would allow clinics to be available to represent clients soon after the start of CCB operations. The rule proposed by the Office requires law school clinic directors to certify that the clinic meets all legal obligations under applicable state law prior to inclusion in the public directory. The Office believes that the training in copyright law or practice before the CCB that is required in the regulations will be most valuable to the 27 See generally U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Law School Application Packet 20202022
Expansion, https www.uspto.gov/sites/default/
files/documents/2020-2022-Law_School_
Application_Packet-May-2021.pdf USPTO
Application last visited Dec. 10, 2021.
28 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO Law School Clinic Certification Program, https
www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/
USPTO_Law_School_Clinic_Certification_Program_
Participating_School_Map-Oct2020.pdf last visited Dec. 10, 2021.
29 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Law School Clinic Certification Program, https
www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/ip-policy/
public-information-about-practitioners/law-schoolclinic-1 identifying five staff attorneys assigned to the Law School Clinic Program last visited Dec.
10, 2021.
30 See, e.g., USPTO Application at 2225
requesting information about experience handling trademark and patent matters and requiring law school clinics and supervising attorneys to undertake various responsibilities regarding the law students they supervise.

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participating law students. After the CCB has become further established, the Office will reconsider whether more robust requirements should be imposed for law clinic certification.
The Office seeks comments on whether the directory as proposed is sufficient to allow participants to make an informed decision regarding whether and where to seek clinic representation.
The Office also seeks comments regarding appropriate outreach strategies for encouraging law school clinic participation.
C. Representation of Business Entities Finally, the proposed rule addresses the issue of who will be authorized to represent business entities, which include corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and sole proprietorships, before the CCB, and what kind of representation is required.
Longstanding practice in federal court requires that a business entities appear with representation of counsel.31 Other jurisdictions, however, provide greater flexibility, particularly in the small claims context. In the Small Claims and Conciliation Branch of the Civil Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, for instance, a corporation may appear as a plaintiff only when represented by counsel, but as a defendant, it may be represented by an authorized officer, director, or employee.32 In Virginia small claims court, a corporation or partnership may be represented by an officer or an employee of that entity. In fact, it may be represented by an attorney only when the attorney is entering an appearance to remove a case to general district court.33 In contrast, when appearing in a Virginia general district court, a corporation must be represented by an attorney, unless the amount in controversy is $2500 or less, the party is a private corporation whose stock is held by no more than five persons, and all stockholders consent to an officer providing representation.34 In Maryland, an officer, designated employee, partner, or member of a limited liability company may appear 31 Rowland v. California Mens Colony, Unit II
Mens Advisory Council, 506 U.S. 194, 20102
1993 It has been the law for the better part of two centuries, for example, that a corporation may appear in the federal courts only through licensed counsel..
32 D.C. Sup. Ct. Small Cl. R. 9b; D.C. Ct. App.
R. 49c11.
33 Va. Code Ann. 16.1122.4 2021. An attorney may represent a corporate or partnership plaintiff or defendant, but only if they are appearing pro se and not in a representative capacity. Id. at 16.1
122.4A1.
34 Id. at 16.181.1; see id. at 16.188.3 generally prohibiting non-attorneys from litigating cases in Virginia courts.

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