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
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.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Deputy General Counsel and Vice President for Intellectual Property, Biotechnology Industry Organization
Hans Sauer is Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a major trade association representing over 1,100 biotechnology companies from the medical, agricultural, environmental and industrial sectors in the United States and 31 other countries. At BIO, Dr. Sauer advises the organization’s board of directors, amicus committee, and various staff committees on patent and other intellectual property-related matters. Prior to taking his current position at BIO in 2006, he was Chief Patent Counsel for MGI Pharma, Inc. in Bloomington MN, and Senior Patent Counsel for Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Baltimore, MD. Hans has 18 years of in-house experience in the biotechnology industry, first as a research scientist and later as a lawyer. His scientific work was in the area of age-related neurological disorders; after becoming a lawyer he worked on several drug development programs, being responsible for patent prosecution and portfolio oversight, clinical trial health information privacy, and sales and marketing legal compliance. He did his postdoc at Genentech in South San Francisco, and holds a M.S. degree from the University of Ulm in his native Germany; a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Lund, Sweden; and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University, where he serves as adjunct professor.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law
Professor O'Connor's research focuses on intellectual property and business law with regard to start-ups and commercializing technology and arts innovation. His teaching and law practice specialize in transactions and the strategic role of the general counsel. Professor O'Connor received his law degree from Stanford Law School, a master's degree in philosophy from Arizona State University, and a bachelor's degree in history from University of Massachusetts. He has published numerous articles and book chapters and lectures frequently around the world. Professor O'Connor's award-winning research has been funded by the National Academies of Science, International Intellectual Property Institute, Kauffman Foundation, and the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (George Mason University), in many cases through competitive fellowships. He is currently working on Method+ology and the Means of Innovation to be published by Oxford University Press.
Since joining the UW Law faculty in 2003, he has served in a number of Law School and university-wide leadership positions, including designing and launching the ground-breaking Entrepreneurial Law Clinic. He has also been a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley, George Washington University, Katholieke Universitat (Leuven BELGIUM), and Hanken School of Economics (Helsinki FINLAND).
The Seed Patent Case: Bowman v. Monsanto - Podcast
Jorge L. Contreras, Gregory Dolin, Hans Sauer, Dean Reuter, Sean M. O'Connor
On May 13, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bowman v. Monsanto, an extremely important case...