Dr. Adam Bisno, PhD in History | Official Historian of the US Patent and Trademark Office

In this episode, we discuss what led Adam to pursue a career in the federal government, his experience working as the official historian of the US Patent and Trademark Office, and his advice for PhD students searching and applying for jobs outside of academia.

Hosted by Michael Wilkinson

To connect with Adam and to learn more about his story, visit his page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

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Michael Wilkinson

Hello everyone I'm Co-host Michael Wilkinson and this is the 100 Alumni Voices Podcast stories that inspire where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Adam Bisno. He received his PhD in history from Johns Hopkins in 2018 and is currently an official historian of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Adam, welcome to the podcast.

Adam Bisno

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Michael Wilkinson

Yeah, of course. So, I went on your LinkedIn and I saw that you described the what you do for your job as you research, interpret and share history of innovation and intellectual property protection. So super interesting description, I guess. Tell me like what? What exactly do you do like? What is your day-to-day? Like, really fascinated.

Adam Bisno

Well, sure I should start by saying, technically, I'm the official historian of the US patent fight.

Michael Wilkinson

Oh, OK.

Adam Bisno

Sounds a lot better than it is. What that really means is there's only one, and that is me. Federal agencies have had historians, to my knowledge for a long time. I think the first ones probably started in during World War Two. For the for what is now the Department of Defense, but later other agencies ended up getting historians for various reasons. But there are a lot at the State Department. For example, at the Census Bureau. So, and of course at the obvious places like the Smithsonian Institution, the parts of it having to do with history and public history programming and publishing. My job is perhaps a little different from a standard historian job for the federal government. I, as the agents, as the historian of a particular agency, I'm supposed to research the agency's history and get as much of it to the public as Poss. Possible there is a universe in which perhaps this job would have me advising agency leadership on how to proceed. In my case, that doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't have a law degree, I'm not an engineer. Those are usually the two things you need in order to be in a position of leadership at a place like the US Patent and Trademark Office, or really any Patent Office. So, most of what I do has to do with the public translating the work that we do, and then the work that our agency does, and then the work of academics who study our agency and the intellectual property system, translating, transposing that work for the national and international audience. My day-to-day is really different every. Today sometimes I have requests from the media with questions I need to answer. I'm working on one now about the history of inventions that would have helped people who were inadvertently buried alive to notify the looking that they're still underground. So, I've been. I've been doing some patent searching on that topic that is for. A prominent online outlet that's doing a feature on scary inventions for how.

Michael Wilkinson

OK.

Adam Bisno

Topic like that other times there are longer term projects that are more academic. I'm working on an article with a Swedish colleague that we have under peer review right now about how the Patent Office ran commemorations during the Great Depression, when the popularity of the office had really hit a native.

Michael Wilkinson

So, I imagine a lot of you know Peaches and postdocs when they graduate. There's this fear of exploring a new field and like new positions, and for you it was so interesting is it's not only just a new field for you, but it's a new field for the agency. You that you're going to work for saying what was that process like knowing that you're flying to something that hasn't really been? At least it's been not been done for this specific agency before, so brand-new position you're an army of one how? How is that like?

Adam Bisno

At the beginning I didn't fit into the bureaucracy in any formal way. I was a free agent under the Director of Communications who himself isn't a historian, but of course is a history enthusiast and had lobbied to get this position created from the beginning. I had to make it up as I went along, which is very rare I think for a federal employee like a permanent federal. Which I am. And that came with challenges and rewards. The challenges were just getting people to do things out of the ordinary of their normal jobs. The rewards have been getting to establish processes. Protocols, especially in the conservation of the artifacts that belong to the agency. That just hadn't. Haven't been in place before. There were issues like documents signed by Thomas Jefferson himself that had been in direct sunlight.

Speaker

Oh wow.

Adam Bisno

Patent holes that are collecting dust and not protected in any meaningful way, one of which is the light bulb that Edison himself sent to the patent. This I have been of course cataloging what we have and recommending conservation measures as I see fit, and that's been fun.

Michael Wilkinson

Wow, I think as a as an engineer who at one point considered Pat low, I'd love to at some point offline just geek out with you on a lot of these things that you've talked about. It's super interesting one. Of the things that you mentioned is. You did a. Lot of you know grinding and you know, hustling to get to that job. So, I imagine for a lot of people listening in they might be interested in you know what? What's that job search process like and how did you either stumble upon or you know, really create this like opportunity that you. Now find yourself in.

Adam Bisno

I need to go backwards a couple of years or few years couple years before the job in order to answer the question, which I think will become clear once I get to the part. Where I end up in this job. So, if I go back to 2018, I was actually a high school history teacher right after my PhD, and in fact, while I was finishing the PhD. I loved it but. To be totally frank, I just couldn't get it to pay enough if I wasn't a certified teacher I taught at a private school, which I really liked, but there just isn't. There is a lot of money and if you rely only on yourself for your income as I do, it's it. It became pretty hard to make ends meet. I had though heard. About federal history as an option, the Society for History and. The federal government. Which is the professional organization of federal historian? Curators and archivists had run a workshop in 2014 when I was in the middle of the PhD about how to get a federal job. Specifically, how to write the resume, which is a bizarre way of writing a resume that is really long and parrots the language of the job ad. But an even more obvious way than you're advised to do in the private sector. So, I was frustrated at a meeting that I didn't need to be at while I was a teacher and I didn't teach. It was lasting. Hours and so I went on usajobs.gov as I've been told to do by the Society for History. And the federal. Government and just typed in historian and I didn't see anything when I typed in history and I saw a job for a writer editor at the Naval History and Heritage Command which is the US Navy. These history shop they call it and actually as an aside, there's another history Hopkins history PhD, who works there now as a historian. Anyway, this was a writer, editor, job, writing articles for the website, and editing books by the command historians, books that would eventually be published in partnership with the Government Printing Office in Washington, DC. So, I applied because I had a little editing experience from before I was a pH D student. I mean just a little editing is a really strong word for what I was doing. I used to. Be a fact checker, but somehow I. Was able to, I mean that. Was editorial work and.

Michael Wilkinson

So about marketing the skills you like your soft skills. Right?

Adam Bisno

Exactly and I had a little bit of copy-editing experience. Or my mother who owns her own business and I told them I put that on my resume and I told them this is my mom. They still called her a reference, which I thought. Was hilarious the federal government? Yeah, does what? It's supposed to do, even if it's your mom. That that was the experience for that qualified me for the job, but what got me the job was. My history degree they had had a lot of trouble finding editors who. Enough editors. They already had some but enough editors who understood what it is that historians actually do. How they write, how they research and therefore how to work? How the editor ought to work with them on getting there. And so, they I know we're really looking for somebody who could do that. They're also looking for somebody who could produce. Content on the website that was reliable. And that would be somebody with history training a writer, editor with history training. And so, I think this was the case of a of. A of perfect timing that also helped. Is that they had authorization to hire someone directly, which is rare in the federal government. Usually, your application would go to the office. The OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, I think, is what? It's called and then computers read your application and then the human being reads your application who's very busy and who might not be familiar. Actually, with the job series you've applied to, job series being a story, their lawyer. And then if all of that goes well, your application might be forwarded to the hiring officer who you might actually work for later. In this case they had direct hire authority to hire a recent grad, and recent meant, and then I was a recent grad because I just got in the PhD. And so, I qualified and that meant that I sent my application directly to the person who ended up being my boss. So, if you ever find on usajobs.gov anything like recent grad direct hire authority applied to that, no matter what, it is, well, not, no matter what, even if you only mildly qualified as I was.

Michael Wilkinson

Interesting, so I think. An interesting piece of the story is this idea of, you know you were at the job you were currently at. You were frustrated. Just said I'm going to go for it. I'm just. Going to look things up were. You, I guess, rewinding even a little bit further back were you originally interested in just being like a history teacher or even like a professor of history? What was your kind of initial? Career goals, I mean, I know what we what we dream and what we end up doing is doesn't always align. But what was? Your kind of initial career goals as you were setting out toward the end of your PhD.

Adam Bisno

Yeah, let's moving further back. We are getting further from the US Patent and Trademark Office, but that's fine. So further back. But yeah, this the editor job was the step that got me to the US Patent and Trademark Office. But further back, yeah, when I. Applied for to the PhD programs, including of course, the Hopkins program. I thought I wanted to be a history professor by the end of it, I did not.

Michael Wilkinson

My main problem was.

Adam Bisno

I realized I didn't want to do any of the things, at least at the time. I didn't want to do any of the things you would need to. Do to get. Tenure, even if you landed a tenure track job. Once I realized that. I realized I should probably make a change. I chose high school history teaching. 1st As a placeholder, I hoped that I might like it and stick with it. But I chose it first because it was a low hanging fruit. Not that it's easy to become a teacher. I still had to apply to a ton of jobs and the job itself wasn't easy, but I knew that my resume as it stood could tell a story of how I might. Be able to teach at a. At a college preparatory school, a private school, you know, because Hopkins had given me teaching experience. A good deal of it, and then I had some of it other at another. College and so that's what I did because. It was just it was easy and I needed to try something. Yeah, that was how I got into teaching.

Michael Wilkinson

Gotcha, so I guess now fast forwarding. Yeah, so you have this direct apply job it works out swimmingly well. So, kind of you know what, what? How does the, how does it progress from there to where you're at currently?

Adam Bisno

I had one anecdote about that that shows I think, how small. The world is. Or maybe no. It probably just shows how small the history world is, but the very person who had run that workshop in 2014 for the Society for History and the federal government, the workshop that taught PhD students how to write resumes. I ran into her on my first day of work. She was in the histories at the naval History and Heritage Command. She hadn't, she worked somewhere else when I first met her. That was the nice coincidence, and of course I told her immediately I stood up and was like I'm here because of you. You helped me get. I mean, I don't think I said anything quite that crazy, but. It was something like. I just see her and she was just like yeah OK I gotta go. And she was also a Hopkins PhD actually. Now that I think about. I think in Near Eastern studies and we turned out later, we developed a great working relationship. So, we are all everywhere I could. Go forward now to how I got to the USPTO. So, while I was working for the naval history and Heritage Command, I had a really excellent manager and I didn't really know what it meant to have such an excellent manager until I had her Debbie and she noticed that there were more things I could do than write and edit necessarily that I also had. And Knack for. Project management and programming and public engagement. One of the things of course you learn as a pH D student, and especially at a place like Hopkins where you teach a bit is you learn how to present and talk to people. Lots of people at once. Very few people at once. And you know how to talk to people at all different registers. You know how to talk to students who are terrified. You, even though you owe me the TA, I guess that's how. I used to and you know you talk to people who are famous in your field and that works really well in any job situation. I bet a lot of us end up getting identified by our managers as good public speakers and we might not all realize that it's partly because of our training and PhD programs, so I started doing more public facing stuff. Videos that. To the fleet about different commemorative events. One thing they also let me do at the naval history and Heritage Command that I loved was being negative about the Navy. We had. A really a. Lot of freedom mean almost every story I wrote or told was about some way the Navy in the past had really messed up.

Speaker

Oh wow.

Adam Bisno

For a disaster after another and people really open to that, they liked it. As long as you have the evidence, and as long as there is a beginning, middle and end to the. Story you were telling. People you know people supported it, so that was.

Michael Wilkinson

That's going to be a very interesting line to tell, because even then you have to very much watch your language and kind of like how you present the work. So how is that I? Mean finding that line of like being honest about the history. If that history is negative but not being, I guess inflammatory about. It or you know.

Adam Bisno

Right, yeah, for the neighborhood history and heritage community, it wasn't hard. Because the language I was using rhymed with the language I was reading in scholarly works, so there's always something to fall back on I guess, and that was another useful skill I ended up with from the PhD. Obviously was I being able to find the stories and the details fairly easily in the secondary literature because we were so well trained or at least well. Practice I should say to find examples in in published works. So, there I didn't have such a problem. I think as long as the evidence was there, as long as you made your case, you could say pretty much anything and no one ever censored me there. And I mean, I wrote some really inflammatory is not the right word, but critical stuff and they would edit it and put it on the website, you know and. I mean, it helped that a lot of it was a long time ago, I think. Yeah, you know, I think the only time I got a little bit of pushback was one time. Apparently not everyone. Knew I shouldn't phrase it this way. Apparently, not everyone knew that the United States lost the war of. 1812 but I.

Michael Wilkinson

Ah, OK.

Adam Bisno

Mean they didn't know that that was a valid argument, and so the only time I got some pushback is actually because of the War of 1812, what? Didn't lose this, I was like. Well, if you got none of your war aims and the capital gets besieged and burned, like probably. Crossed like you know.

Michael Wilkinson

Thank you for assessment.

Adam Bisno

The other side gets all its war aims like you probably didn't win, but I think even when people have a kind of sense of humor there and it was also this secret treasure trove of artifacts and documents and books that they have. They have, I think it might be the oldest library in the federal government. Might be the Navy's library and it's this amazing. History focused library research library on the Navy Yard in Washington, DC. They also had 400,000 artifacts, some of them stored at our office, some of them down in Richmond, VA, and I got to meet curators, archivists, art historians, the Navy has an art collection underwater archaeologist, which has to be the coolest job that. Sounding job that exists.

Michael Wilkinson

That would be that would be difficult to preserve underwater artifacts. Oh my God.

Adam Bisno

Yeah, they used to and when on the rare in the rare cases where an artifact would be taken to the surface, they would have to titrate the water. These things would be in baths for periods of years, like going from salt to fresh water, and that was fun to watch. So, this job really. Although I was only the writer editor. This job opened my eyes to all of the different kinds of job series in the federal government. The job series is just the word for the term for an occupational category that they are archivists. Curators also, underwater archaeologists, archaeologists, public affairs specialists. There are all sorts of people doing all sorts of things for the federal government that I just hadn't really. Known about before and so. That got me thinking about other jobs. There wasn't a ton of room for growth in the job I had, but I had this boss who was really invested in my growth and in my resume. Developing in such a way as to have lots of different experiences on it. And so, I think she gave me the work that prepared me to get the job at the US Patent and Trademark Office. By the time I applied for that, they advertised it. I had done everything on the list of action and qualifications, and it also helped that I was in the federal government already. So, once you get your first federal job, you end up with a great advantage. Over outsiders when it comes to applying for any other job, it's kind of like transferring within the company. You get that kind of advantage. I'm not sure I would have gotten this US Patent and Trademark Office job without having already been in the federal government. How that would have worked. But I did have that advantage coming in.

Michael Wilkinson

So, you talked about, you know some of the incredible mentorship that you received over the years at, you know, your various jobs and places. And I'm curious, and I'm sure a lot of people are sitting in there as well. You know what was the best piece of mentorship advice that you've got? And what are some of those you know? Same words of wisdom. That you would impart to current PhD students who are kind of considering their career path and whatever field that might be.

Adam Bisno

That you don't. I mean you do in a resume in an application, need to show that you're qualified, sure, but are mildly qualified for the job you're applying for. But someone told me many years ago. Also, a history PhD, not Hopkins Prince. And it's actually my cousin, but he's older than I am and came through all this earlier and is now in city government. And before that later, you're an organizer. She said all you really need to do is or what you really need to do when you apply for a job is just tell a story or suggest a story with your resume that makes this job seem like the logical conclusion to everything you've been doing or a logical. And that was helpful. I think that might be advice that's particularly helpful to historians when we think about. Something like a resume is telling as implying a story, but I think it applies to everybody. And so, your resume becomes not a, not a, it's not a CV, it's not a it's not a series of everything you've done or most things you've done, or even the highlights, or the things you're proud of. None of that matters. It's the things that tell. The story that that bring. You to this next job. So, I rewrite my resume for every job I apply for. It's blank essentially and I pull a few jobs or a few experiences that tell the story and leave everything else out that I think that's helped me. I mean, I haven't talked to anybody about how they experienced my resume when they did or didn't. Hire me, but. That's why, and if I were to get. The advice I would give is that.

Michael Wilkinson

If you feel.

Adam Bisno

It's not like you finished the PhD and then leave Academia and life is much better and solved. I mean, I did have that experience, but eventually you get tired of the. Job you're in. Or you might you probably will like where you learned first isn't where you necessarily end up and for all I know there is no ending up. None of us stays in jobs for career length anymore. And moving from job to job is really OK. I think as long as you can keep your resume telling whatever story you needed to tell. And when you think about switching career, starting a career or switching careers or switching jobs, everything you've ever done actually matters. Like you're being a TA, you're having. Stay at. I worked for summer once in France with a bunch of like absolutely terrible children who I heard teenagers who didn't want to listen to the lectures I was giving didn't wanna do the activities. It was this pseudo academic program and it was a horrible experience and without that I wouldn't have gotten a job as a teacher like it meant nothing to me. But it meant everything on the resume, I think. Thinking about the resume and applying for jobs and picking a career or not thinking about everything done in the past, is just something to use. Something to pick up or discard depending on what the job ad is and what you happen to want to do.

Michael Wilkinson

I think I think that's like a super fascinating way of looking at it because I think often people think, well, there's no way I can apply to ex job because I don't have X specific background and they would never take someone who doesn't have X specific background. But I think. You know the story that you told us far is kind of the example of where your soft skills and where, just the variety of experiences you have get you without necessarily being. I have trained my whole life to do this one very niche specific thing. Yeah, so it's a very. I think it's a very powerful way of looking at it. Of that I mean not just for historians, but for a lot of people it is forming and crafting all of your experiences to be relevant, but you don't necessarily need to. Be exactly on the bullseye to be you know, qualified for a job.

Adam Bisno

No, not even remotely on the bullseye. In my experience, you just need your resume to tell a little story about how it'd be good if you. Had an interview. Would be a good idea. To interview you but yeah. Really, the writer editor job, I think yeah, I got on the basis of being a fact checker for travel and Leisure magazine before I even went to Hopkins. And then. I talked about editing my own work. I don't know if that even counts and then yeah, but I do edit for my mother. 's business and I. Said it's my mom and that was good enough, which it still shocks me, obviously the way talking about it.

Michael Wilkinson

And yeah, for the.

Adam Bisno

For the for the USPTO job, I had no background in intellectual property, no. But I barely knew what a patent was like. I rather I knew what they were. I just didn't. You know? I hadn't. I didn't think about them regularly and I didn't really know how trademarks work. I didn't know any history of the agency and that didn't end up being what mattered at all. Thing that people say, but which is true, is that the PhD will teach you how to teach yourself things. Fast, maybe other people. Yeah, I think it's not just that teach you to teach, things can do it really, really fast after this. Experience at Hopkins and that. And that's helped me.

Michael Wilkinson

Too, so I guess you know. Now that you are where you are, what is? What are some of the things that you really like? Enjoy about your job. I saw you know, for example, you did a. Podcast with the. Smithsonian, which is super cool so you know.

Speaker

Like what are?

Michael Wilkinson

What are just some? Of the things like that when. You wake up to. You know, I like, really, I really look forward to doing this thing at my office.

Adam Bisno

Yeah, I think the podcast was so far the highlight and I'm not even. Sure, why no, I think I do know why. What I? It was kind of like a like an oral history exam. Or that's how I treated it like I've gone back to my qualifying exams at Hopkins. I studied for even though I knew things about the subject I studied for it, I was ready for it. And then. And then did it and it was it was. It was really fun to produce something that lots of people actually listened to. I think something else I look forward to about my job on a on an almost daily basis is. I do a lot of digging, like for people who are otherwise hidden from the record, but who make it into. And by the record I mean the you know, the official record of this of the state government records. But who do make it into the record at the US Patent and Trademark Office people we otherwise wouldn't know about, and so I enjoy looking for. Gay people, I've just found a bunch of lesbian inventors like African Americans of course of the 19th century. Getting patents at really perilous times, for them immigrants. Everybody shows up in the patent record, and I've learned something that you know. Everybody has an aunt who knows how to do this. I just didn't know how and I've learned since taking this. Job really how to? Do some genealogical research and so that plus research into patent records has. That produce a lot of interesting stories, so that's the thing I tend to look forward to. Is just chasing inventors down and my the ones I'm most interested in are the ones who. Aren't as successful as we would see it. They don't actually make money on patents, but I can see their case file who their attorney was and then sometimes that leads me to their if they left. Papers somewhere I can get into the papers. This kind of hunt for really ordinary people doing extraordinary things they weren't recognized for in their own time. Is has been fun and rewarding. Recently I found you know some descendants of some people and it's also fun to go. To them and talk.

Michael Wilkinson

Oh wow.

Adam Bisno

And one person actually his father. His father's patent case ended up being really important to the Patent Office. The history of the Patent Office, and so. I ended up teaming up with him this 80-year-old descendant of a man who had a 1918 patent and the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum and we're making a documentary that we just we just shot the interview for it. So, I think that's what I like the most is. Is finding ordinary people who are otherwise hidden in these in these patent records which. Never even knew about until stopped this job.

Michael Wilkinson

Yeah, I think it's a very noble and inspiring, you know, pursuit. I'm a first generation American, you know Russian Jewish immigrants and I know all too well how history is written and how you know often those who might not have been in the majority don't get recognized as they should. So, it's very, it's very cool, to see that you're doing that kind of work and you're shining a light on a bunch of different groups of folks who have not, you know previously, had that light shined.

Adam Bisno

Yeah, thank you. Well, Speaking of Russian Jewish immigrants were Jewish immigrants. Even the famous people in the patent record you find things that you didn't really know about them or looking at the patent record changes your view of what was going on in their lives. Like we know that Einstein got a US patent and a British patent for the same device and maybe some other patents but. When I went in and looked at, actually the patent case file, what I saw was. That there's a lot of kind. Of failure to correspond with the office like the office would. Take off what? Are called office actions. The examiner which would move the application along after the inventor and the headers attorneys had satisfied certain requests certain requirements and answered certain requests. And in Einstein and Sillard was the other. Both of them European Jews. He had invented actually this rich. They're not really responding to office actions and. I'm like what? Is going on and then. I look like they're. Harder fees and realize well it’s 1931-32-33 like they are. They have to. Leave Germany like they're getting death threat. Especially Einstein is getting death threats. It's no longer safe for him to be here, be there, they're just busy. And so, in this case you know Einstein doesn't talk a ton about his experience of being. Not only persecuted but hunted in the early 1930s, being chased out of the country. But these little delays in in in the patent paperwork at least suggests an effect like we could sort of imagine that actually he's not getting stuff done because he's busy, so I think and saying so the patent records also sometimes tell us things or make us think about famous figures in a slightly different. And that invention never made it to market and was never successful. It's one of Einstein's failures. He thought about it that way. And so, I decided to write a little article just shifting the perspective a little and saying we don't really know if he was.

Michael Wilkinson

And contextualizing it, yeah.

Adam Bisno

If this was a failure as such like he was running from the Nazis at the time, he didn't really have time to. Pursue this invention, but yeah.

Michael Wilkinson

No, I mean, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you. Like I said, I'd love to when you mentioned like Thomas Jefferson writings that you know around the sun like I'd love to talk to you much, much more offline about just some of these. Very fun and you know.

Speaker

Right?

Adam Bisno

Three times.

Michael Wilkinson

It's yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure. I will be definitely following up with you after all of this. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Adam Bisno

You're welcome, thank you for having me.