Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos will appear at the Center for American Progress to discuss the role of innovation as a principal driver of economic growth and job creation. Harvard Business Review recently described the USPTO as the "biggest job creator you never heard of" because inventions that can spark new businesses are stuck in the backlog of unprocessed patent applications. Under Secretary Kappos will discuss his agenda for reducing the backlog and speeding the delivery of innovative goods and services to market.

President Obama's Strategy for American Innovation identifies innovation as the foundation of sustainable growth and quality jobs. Under Secretary Kappos will discuss intellectual property's emergence as the currency of innovation and the guarantor of America's competitiveness in the global economy.

The Center for American Progress's "Doing What Works" program invites you to an address by Peter R. Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on government reform and fiscal responsibility.

Antigay legislation in Uganda has prompted a global outcry and heightened attention to the dangers facing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in Africa. As one of the most courageous defenders of LGBT human rights, Anglican Bishop Christopher Senyonjo of Uganda has spoken out against antigay hate legislation in his country and advocated for LGBT rights.

Bishop Gene Robinson is the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. He was elected to the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003 and has worked nationally and internationally for full human rights for all LGBT people. Bishop Robinson worked on HIV prevention and treatment in Uganda in the 1990s and has been a tireless defender of social justice issues.

Please join us for a lively, illuminating conversation between Bishops Robinson and Senyonjo about what is happening in Africa around LGBT issues, including antigay legislation; religious forces that are fueling hatred; and efforts to push back against that hatred and create a beloved community for all people, gay and straight.

Since September 11, 2001, our country has asked the Coast Guard to take on an expanded mission  without providing it with the resources and support needed to accomplish these new tasks. While spending at the Department of Defense has appropriately been compared to a wide-open spigot, the Coast Guard has been asked to do more with less.

The Center for American Progress will release a new report on June 9, 2010, entitled, "Building a Coast Guard for the 21st Century." The report examines the Coast Guard's budget, personnel, command structure, and defense readiness challenges as well as emerging national security issues that will fall within its purview, and it offers recommendations to move the service forward into the 21st century.

Our dependence on oil is not sustainable. The United States has only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we use one-quarter of the oil produced annually. One in five barrels of U.S. oil comes from countries that the State Department considers to be "dangerous or unstable." The BP oil disaster is a tragic reminder of the human, economic, public health, and environmental costs of oil dependence. And growing worldwide oil demand—led by China—will put additional upward pressure on oil prices. The United States needs comprehensive clean energy and climate reform that would decrease our dependence on this expensive and unstable commodity.

Please join Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and a panel of experts to discuss the national security, economic, public health, and environmental consequences of our dependence on oil.

Law.Gov is a national conversation about broader access to primary legal materials in the United States across all three branches of government and across the federal, state, and local governments. It is a series of workshops across the country that started in January at Stanford Law School and has continued on to major law schools, examining the implications of making the law more broadly available. The workshops have examined copyright restrictions, privacy implications, and the technical underpinnings necessary to provide authenticated access to bulk legal materials.

This workshop will be streamed live on the Internet, and video will be posted after the workshop on YouTube and the Internet Archive.

Please note that attendance on site is invitation-only as space is extremely limited. You will be able to observe the workshop via the webcast and Twitter streams.

Passing health care reform legislation was a historic moment, yet success in reform will be defined by greater access to better care for more people. Critical to success is implementation at the hospital level and Cleveland Clinic’s leader Dr. Delos Cosgrove is on the front lines. Ranked as one of the best hospitals in the world, the Cleveland Clinic is famous for controlling costs and delivering care efficiently. Under his leadership, the Cleveland Clinic has instituted rigorous transparency rules, upgraded the quality of care, and kept care affordable, all while expanding the medical center across America and internationally.

Please join the Center for American Progress as Dr. Cosgrove shares his thoughts on delivery reform and the implementation of the health care reform bill.

Neither the mainstream LGBT community nor the mainstream African-American community has found a way to unite behind common issues of concern. While there has been some effort on the part of the organized LGBT community to support issues of importance to the African-American community and vice versa, it has not been sufficient.

This briefing will begin to reframe and broaden the current discourse on this topic, building on the Arcus Foundation’s work on messaging to the African-American community. We will discuss new polling data and other recent research to highlight issues common to black LGBT people and the broader black community, and discuss how more meaningful collaboration can occur to advance a broader equal rights agenda inclusive of LGBT equality.

John D. Podesta of the Center for American Progress, Douglas Holz-Eakin of the American Action Forum, and John F. Harris of POLITICO invite you to join them for a debate on our judiciary.

Elena Kagan's upcoming confirmation fight promises to put not just one Supreme Court nominee in the spotlight, but also the entire federal judiciary. As a Democratic president appears poised to place his second selection on the Supreme Court in just two years, where are the courts headed? Does the recent direction of the Supreme Court represent a corrective to the liberal Warren Court, or are conservative judges succeeding at rewriting modern constitutional law?

Please join us and two experts on the judiciary—former Bush administration Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand and former Clinton administration acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger—for a debate and lively discussion on the philosophical battle for the courts.

Join us on June 23 at 6:30 p.m. as Jeff Madrick and John Cassidy discuss financial reform and how it can help revive the American economy.  Hosted by Demos at 220 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor, in New York. Sign up for details on how to attend in person.

Health insurance reform is critical to making healthcare markets work for consumers. This event focuses on two key reforms, review of rate increases and the creation of exchanges, and how those reforms seek to spur competition and control costs. We will bring together both state and federal regulators, including key enforcers form the Justice Department and HHS, and explore how they will work together in the years to come to make health insurance reforms effective.

Three years ago, nearly to the day, the Senate's effort to overhaul our immigration system died. This event spotlights the unprecedented expansion of immigration enforcement in the intervening years. And it seeks to reconcile that reality with a deeply held perception by Americans that our borders remain broken. Arizona is merely exhibit A of continuing public frustration.

Expert speakers from the current administration, the Bush administration, the Arizona state house, and leading think-tanks will assess the federal government's effort to control illegal migration and chart a path forward. Join us for a lively conversation as they shed light on the facts on the ground in Arizona and the efforts of two administrations to reach the goal of secure borders.

The retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens marks the end of a controversial chapter for the U.S. Supreme Court. A new biography sheds light on the career and life of the second longest serving justice in the court’s modern history. In John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life authors Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman reveal how Stevens fights for judicial balance and how his story can guide Obama and future presidents in filling Court vacancies.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion with the authors of this insightful and timely new biography.

In the new issue of Democracy, editor and progressive journalist Michael Tomasky argues that the misreading of history—particularly the New Deal and the Great Society—has produced undue and counterproductive frustration among progressives today that only serves to strengthen conservatives. Please join us for a provocative discussion of the Obama presidency in relation to other progressive eras.