Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Michael K. Friedland

Partner, Friedland Cianfrani LLP

Biography

Mike has three decades of IP enforcement experience. He has represented clients in more than 270 intellectual property cases in state and federal courts in California and 23 other states and before the Trademark Trials and Appeals Board.

Mike’s practice includes patent, trademark, trade secret, and copyright cases. His cases have spanned a wide range of industries and technologies, including consumer products, semiconductors, tactical products, medical devices, computer software, apparel, restaurants, and financial services. He has represented brand-name companies including Oakley, Luxottica, Tesla, 5.11 Tactical, ITT, Makita, Pacific Life Insurance Company, Carl’s Jr., Microsemi, NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway, Game Show Network, Razor, Volcom, Specialized Bicycle, Mexicana Airlines, and SRS Labs, among others.

Mike was a partner at Knobbe Martens for more than two decades. At Knobbe, Mike served as co-chair of the Litigation Department. He had previously served as co-chair of the Trademark/Brand Protection group and the Consumer Products practice group.

World Trademark Review 1000 has several times named Mike a “Leading Trademark Lawyer." In the 2022 edition, WTR 1000 commended him for his “advanced state of preparedness,” and included a client remark that, “there’s nothing he hasn’t seen.”

In the 2021 edition, WTR described him as a “backbone of [his former firm's] litigation practice,” and noted his ability to litigate “cases associated with all categories of IP rights.”

In the 2020 edition, WTR described him as having been “on the cutting edge of enforcement for three decades.” In that edition, a client said he was “a sophisticated and thoughtful professional who understands how to get things done.”

In 2023, Legal 500 named Mike to its list of preeminent patent litigators. Thompson/Reuters has regularly named him a “Southern California Super Lawyer” in the category of IP litigation since 2004.

He frequently speaks on intellectual property litigation subjects, including to the AIPLA, OCBA, OCIPLA, LAIPLA, ABA, ACC, INTA, Harvard Law School Association, Harvard Business School Association, MIT Alumni Association, and the Federalist Society. Mike’s articles on IP subjects have been featured in publications including American Marketer, Luxury Roundtable, IP Watchdog, Law 360, IP 360, The Trademark Lawyer, The Los Angeles Daily Journal, The Recorder, ABA Landslide, Orange County Business Journal, Engage, and Stanford Technology Review.

Mike has taught as an adjunct professor at Whittier School of Law and served as a JAG with the California State Military Reserve. For 16 years, he served as a Reserve Deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, retiring as a Lieutenant.

Mike serves on the Harvard Law School Association’s Senior Advisory Committee, is a board member of the Federal Bar Association of Orange County, and the vice-chair of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group. He is a former member of Law360's Intellectual Property Editorial Board, a former member and former Secretary of the Harvard Law School Association's Executive Committee, and a former president of the Harvard Law School Association of Orange County.

Susan G. Braden

Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims

Biography

Judge Braden was appointed to the United States Court of Federal Claims on July 14, 2003, by President George W. Bush, after being confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate. She was sworn into office by Senator Jeff Sessions. Her investiture was conducted on October 24, 2003 by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On January 28, 2015, Judge Braden was appointed by the American Law Institute as one of seven Judicial Advisors to the Restatement of the Law on Copyright. In 2013, Judge Braden was appointed to the Judges Special Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and was named as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Advisory Council of the United States Court of Federal Claims. On March 23, 2012, Judge Braden received the Linn Inn Alliance Distinguished Service Medal at the New York Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Annual Dinner for her work with the American Inns of Court, dedicated to intellectual property law. On February 7, 2012, Judge Braden was appointed as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law Task Force to consider how to more efficiently adjudicate "small" patent infringement cases. During 2010-2011, Judge Braden served as President of the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court, which is affiliated with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She was recognized at a ceremony in the United States Supreme Court in November 2011, when she received the American Inns of Court’s Platinum Distinction Award. Judge Braden also served as a Member of the Editorial Board of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

In July 2009, Judge Braden was appointed as a Member of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility-Judges Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association, on which she served until 2012. On February 14, 2007, Judge Braden was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute and was active in drafting Restatement of Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. On October 22, 2004, she was inducted as a Senior Fellow of the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Section by Justice O’Connor at a ceremony held at the United States Supreme Court.

Prior to joining the bench, Judge Braden litigated complex federal and administrative law cases in private practice in trial and appellate courts. In particular, her work in the intellectual property area received favorable notice in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Law Journal, and the Journal of the American Bar Association, and was featured in Interfaces on Trial: Intellectual Property and Interoperability In The Global Software Industry. In 1996, Judge Braden was honored by the Computer Law Association for winning multiple decisions in the Eastern District of New York, the Eastern District of Texas, the Second Circuit, and a certified question to the Supreme Court of Texas in Computer Assocs. Int’l, Inc. v. Altai Inc., a landmark case that changed the application of copyright law to computer software. In 1998, she also won a companion case brought in France before the Cour de Appel de Paris.

In private practice, Judge Braden represented a wide variety of client interests before almost every major department and federal agency, testified before the United States Congress on a variety of matters, and was a principal lobbyist for the Emergency Oil and Steel Loan Guarantee Act of 1999, that established a $1 billion federal loan guarantee program to assist bankrupt and troubled steel mills and small oil companies.

Judge Braden received a B.A. degree (1970) and J. D. degree (1973) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also attended post graduate courses at the Harvard Law School in the summer of 1978.

Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Chris Israel

Senior Partner, ACG Advocacy

Biography

Chris Israel is a Senior Partner at ACG Advocacy and is also the co-lead of the firm’s technology and intellectual property group.

He joined ACG in 2010, after serving in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Chief of
Staff to the Secretary of Commerce and later becoming the first U.S. International Intellectual
Property Enforcement Coordinator.

At ACG Advocacy, Chris works with a diverse range of clients including some of the largest and
most innovative companies in the world to support their efforts to build a policy environment in the U.S. that promotes and protects their investments in intellectual property. He has also
developed a unique focus leading a coalition of top venture capitalists and innovative startups to pursue a policy agenda that has led to improvements in tax policy, investments in R&D, and
strengthening patent protection.

Chris maintains a leadership profile working on IP and innovation issues and has been a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times both as an Administration official and since he left public service. He was previously named one of the 50 “Most Influential People on IP” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.

His international experience in government, particularly in working with China, has enabled him to successfully engage clients on global trade and technology matters ranging from the
negotiations of trade agreements, tariff policy, and engaging international organizations. His
client relationships have included automakers, global manufacturing companies, shipping
companies, and Chinese e-commerce and social media platforms seeking to better understand the U.S. market.

Chris’ experience leading coalitions has also included serving as Executive Director of the
musicFIRST Coalition during the lead-up to the passage of the landmark Music Modernization
Act. During this time he was named to Medium’s inaugural “Power 10” list of music policy
leaders.

Within ACG Advocacy, he provides guidance on the firm’s day-to-day interaction with all its
clients and helps lead ACG’s extensive policy research team. He has also launched the firm’s
podcast focused on policy trends and developments in Washington.

Earlier in his career, Chris worked on international policy issues at Time Warner where he was
part of a team that supported then-CEO, Gerald Levin, to develop the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce a ground-breaking global organization of CEOs from the U.S., EU, and Asia that developed industry best practices on matters such as online privacy, cross border data flows, and online taxation.

Prior to Time Warner, he served on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to U.S. Representatives Jan
Meyers (R-KS) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS).

Chris received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from The George
Washington University.

Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

James Bacchus

Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs and Director, Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity, University of Central Florida

Biography

James Bacchus is the Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs and Director of the Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity at the University of Central Florida. He was a founding judge and was twice the Chairman – the chief judge – of the highest court of world trade, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a former Member of the Congress of the United States, from Florida, and also a former international trade negotiator for the United States. He is a Global Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada and an Adjunct Scholar of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the Pao Yue – Kong Chair Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. He served on the High-Level Advisory Panel to the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, chairs the global Commission on Trade and Investment Policy of the International Chamber of Commerce, and chaired the global sustainability council of the World Economic Forum. For more than fourteen years, he chaired the global practice of the largest law firm in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Professor Bacchus is the author of the books Trade and Freedom, published by Cameron May in London in 2004, and The Willing World: Shaping and Sharing a Sustainable Global Prosperity, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The Financial Times named The Willing World one of the “Best Books of 2018.” He is a frequent writer in leading publications and a frequent speaker on prominent platforms worldwide on numerous topics relating to international law and international political economy.

Brook K. Baker

Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law

Biography

Professor Baker teaches disability discrimination law, negotiations and a new course on human rights, intellectual property, and access to medicines. He taught and consulted in South African law schools and law school clinics between 1997-2012. Professor Baker is an honorary research fellow at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa.

Professor Baker is also a senior policy analyst for Health GAP (Global Access Project) and is actively engaged in campaigns for universal access to treatment, prevention, and care for people living with HIV/AIDS, especially expanded and improved medical treatment. More recently he has been working on accelerating research on and equitable global access to vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has written and consulted extensively on intellectual property rights, trade, investor-state dispute settlement, access to medicines, and medicines regulatory policy, including with the African Union, NEPAD, South Africa, Uganda, ASEAN, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, CARICOM, UK DfID, the World Health Organization, the Millennium Development Goals Project, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Open Society Institute, UNAIDS, UNDP, Unitaid, the Medicines Patent Pool, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law and others. He has served as a key, alternative board member and board member of the NGO delegation to Unitaid, which acts to improve market dynamics and early market entry of medicines and diagnostics needed to address HIV/AIDS, TB, Hepatitis C and malaria. He presently is a civil society representative to the Therapeutics Pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Acclerator.

Professor Baker also works on policy issues concerning the Global Fund and the US PEPFAR Program, and how those priority disease initiatives might contribute more broadly to improving health care delivery in developing countries. Finally, he analyzes resource needs for global health, innovative financing mechanisms and IMF macroeconomic policies that restrict increased government and donor spending on health and education in developing countries.

Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Philip Johnson

Founder and Principal, Johnson-IP Strategy & Consulting

Biography

Philip S. Johnson is Founder and Principal of Johnson-IP Strategy & Consulting. He previously served as Senior Vice President - Law Department and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel of Johnson & Johnson, having joined the corporation in January 2000 after 27 years in private practice. In this position, he managed about 110 patent and trademark attorneys worldwide. Phil is Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation, Vice President and President Elect of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and a member of the Board of the Intellectual Property Owners Association Education Foundation (Past President). He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel (Past President) and of PhRMA’s IP Focus Group (Chair Emeritus). Previously, Phil served as President of INTERPAT.

Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Phil was a senior partner and co-chair of IP litigation at Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia, where he specialized in intellectual property issues affecting major pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer product companies. Phil has served as trial counsel in over 100 patent cases, including over 50 resulting in reported decisions of the federal district courts and/or of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Phil regularly testifies before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on the subject of patent law reform and, more recently, abusive patent litigation. Phil served as a member of Chief Judge Michel’s Advisory Council on Patent Reform, and was recognized in the Congressional Record as a member of the Minority Whip’s “Kitchen Cabinet” for the America Invents Act. Thereafter, Phil served as IPO’s representative on the ABA-AIPLA-IPO committee of six experts (“COSE”) formed at Director Kappos’ request to propose to the USPTO implementing regulations for the PGR-IPR post-grant proceedings created by the AIA.

Phil co-authored “Compensatory Damages Issues In Patent Infringement Cases, A Pocket Guide for Federal District Court Judges,” published by the Federal Judicial Center, and has served that Center as a faculty member on its IP-related judicial education programming. Phil was also featured in the Landslide Publication March/April 2013 issue. The New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association awarded Phil with its 2013 Jefferson Medal, presented on June 7, 2013.

Phil received his Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude with distinction in biology from Bucknell University, and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where his third year advisor was now-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Jorge L. Contreras

James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

Biography

Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.

Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.

Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.