U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Danny Julián Boggs is a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed to a newly created seat on that court on January 29, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 3, and received his commission on March 25. He served as the Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit from 2003 to 2009.
Professor of the Practice of Law, Stanford Law School
Doug Melamed practiced law for 43 years before spending the 2014-15 academic year at the Law School as the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law. He was appointed Professor of the Practice of Law in 2015.
From 2009 until 2014, Professor Melamed was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Intel Corporation and was responsible for overseeing Intel’s legal, government affairs and corporate affairs departments. Prior to joining Intel in 2009, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of WilmerHale, a global law firm in which he served as a chair of the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. His practice included appellate and trial court litigation, counseling, and representing clients in matters before government law enforcement and regulatory agencies. He joined WilmerHale’s predecessor in 1971. From 1996 to 2001, Professor Melamed served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division and, before that, as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
Professor Melamed has received numerous professional awards and honors. He has been the Distinguished Visitor from Practice and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and he has authored numerous articles on antitrust and on law and economics. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Nasdaq exchanges and the American Law Institute and a Contributing Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal. He was for many years a member of the Yale University Council and a member of the board of trustees of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Charles M. Merrill of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
The son of an economics professor, Michael Meurer knew by the time he was 13 that he, too, wanted to teach at the university level. An S.B., J.D. and Ph.D. later, he became an economics professor at Duke University and later a law professor at the University of Buffalo. He came to Boston University School of Law in 1999, where he has taught courses in patents, intellectual property and public policy toward the high-tech industry. "It's a special privilege to be able to speak three times a week to an attentive and thoughtful audience," he says.
Professor Meurer has received several grants and fellowships, including two grants from the Pew Charitable Trust, a Ford Foundation grant, an Olin Faculty Fellowship at Yale Law School and a postdoctoral fellowship at AT&T Bell Labs. He has served as an expert witness for the Federal Trade Commission on a merger case presenting issues related to patent licensing. He also has consulted with government officials from developing countries about antitrust law, and taught short courses in American intellectual property law at the law faculties of the University of Victoria and the National University of Singapore. "I'm excited by the prospect of having a positive influence on American technology law and policy," Professor Meurer says. Outside of work, he enjoys playing and watching basketball.
Partner and Lecturer
Adam Mortara graduated from the University of Chicago in 1996 with a B.Sc. in chemistry. He then attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he received a masters degree in astrophysics on a British Marshall Scholarship.
Mr. Mortara graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with highest honors in 2001. Following graduation, he clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. After his clerkships, he was a Temple Bar Scholar of the American Inns of Court.
From 2003 to 2020, Mr. Mortara was with Bartlit Beck LLP where he tried high stakes intellectual property cases and, more notably, Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard. He retired from Bartlit Beck and founded Lawfair LLC, a civil and voting rights firm. He has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School since 2007, where he teaches Federal Habeas Corpus, Federal Jurisdiction, Criminal Procedure, and Writing for the Judiciary.
Vice President - Chief IP Counsel, Intellectual Ventures
Phyllis T. Turner-Brim is Vice President, Chief IP Counsel of Intellectual Ventures headquartered in Bellevue, WA.
In this role, Phyllis is responsible for managing and coordinating legal services supporting patent asset acquisitions and divestitures, licensing, prosecution and related transactions. Phyllis’ current team consists of over fifty-five attorneys, para-professionals, assistants and clerks. Immediately prior to this post, Phyllis was Licensing Attorney Director – Program Development at IV.
Prior to joining IV, Phyllis had dual legal and business roles as IP Counsel and Director of RFID Strategy and Licensing at Intermec Technologies Corporation. In her legal role as IP Counsel, Phyllis had responsibility for managing and providing a full spectrum of intellectual property services and related legal counseling including, managing the IP Legal budget, selecting and managing outside prosecution counsel, managing and developing licensing programs, docketing and litigation support. In her business role as Director of RFID Strategy and Licensing, Phyllis had the general management responsibility for Intermec’s RFID BU. In this regard, Phyllis was responsible for driving RFID revenue, developing and implementing product strategy and roadmaps, managing internal and external partner relationships, developing and managing budget, and managing all business unit functions and personnel.
From 2000 to 2004, Phyllis was Associate General Counsel – Intellectual Property at Cabot Microelectronics Corporation. In this position, Ms. Turner-Brim established a full service intellectual property department as part of a corporate “spin-off,” and had responsibility for the corporate intellectual property function worldwide. In addition, Phyllis was responsible for providing legal counseling in the areas of Labor and Employment, Product Stewardship, Environmental Law, and Immigration.
Prior to her post at Intermec, Phyllis served briefly as Assistant General Counsel, Intellectual Property for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in Bentonville, Arkansas. She has also served as Intellectual Property Attorney for Amoco Corporation (now BP), and as an associate attorney at the IP boutique firm of McAndrews, Held and Malloy, Ltd.
Phyllis is a 1993 graduate of the University of Cincinnati Law School, and a 1986 honors graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology (B.S. Chemical Engineering). She has served as a lecturer/presenter on several topics including, developing business focused licensing programs, diversity in the law, recruitment and retention of minorities and women in technical professions, chemical patent drafting, IP strategy development, career development and personal risk taking. Phyllis accepted an invitation to join the Board of Trustees for the AIPLEF in 2013. She has also been a member of the Board of Trustees for the Snohomish County YMCA since 2012 and in 2011, she was elected to Board of Trustees for Trinity Lutheran College in Everett, WA. Prior to pursuing a career in the law, Ms. Turner-Brim held technical management positions with General Electric Co. and Procter and Gamble Co.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
Associate, Covington & Burling LLP
Kathryn Bi is an Associate at Covington & Burling LLP. She graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 2015 and from Dartmouth College in 2009 where she earned Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts degrees. Prior to law school Kathryn worked for three years as a chemical engineer at DuPont Corporation in Palo Alto and Genzyme Corporation in Boston.
Senior Associate to the President and Secretary of the University of Arizona
Jon Dudas has served as the Senior Associate to the President and Secretary of the University of Arizona since July 2014.
Mr. Dudas spent fourteen years in service to the U.S. Government, and as head of the USPTO, he led a performance-based government agency with 9,000 employees and a nearly $2 billion annual budget. During his tenure, the USPTO achieved record-level performance in meeting key annual objectives, and led key patent cooperation and development missions with China, India, Europe, Brazil and several other countries.
In addition to holding his post as Director of the USPTO from 2004 – 2009, Mr. Dudas’s public sector experience includes serving as Counsel for Legal Policy and Senior Floor Assistant for The Speaker of the House for the U.S. House of Representatives and Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the Committee on the Judiciary. After his appointment as Director of the USPTO, Mr. Dudas was a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP in Washington D.C. and then President of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a national nonprofit that works to educate and inspire children to pursue careers in technology, science and innovation. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Conversant Intellectual Property Management, Inc., of Ottowa, Ontario. Mr. Dudas holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois.
Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center
Steven P. Lehotsky has significant experience developing and executing litigation strategies to help businesses and trade associations address their most important regulatory and public-policy challenges.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller LLP, Mr. Lehotsky directed the litigation strategy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's leading business federation, where he worked from 2013-2021. While at the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center, he served as chief litigation counsel. Mr. Lehotsky led the Chamber's efforts to bring successful challenges to federal, state, and local regulations of business. He also directed the U.S. Chamber's efforts to defend pro-growth regulatory reforms. Mr. Lehotsky also led and implemented the U.S. Chamber’s strategies for filing hundreds of amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate and district courts, and state supreme and appellate courts. He is a frequent speaker at events and conferences on litigation and regulatory trends.
Mr. Lehotsky previously was an attorney at WilmerHale LLP in both the Washington D.C. and Boston offices, where he practiced government and regulatory litigation, appellate litigation, and counseling on constitutional, statutory, and regulatory issues for clients across a wide variety of industry sectors. He also previously practiced as a commercial litigator at Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston.
In addition, Mr. Lehotsky was an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006-2009, advising the White House and executive departments and agencies on constitutional and statutory issues relating to national security, immigration, international sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and other programs, the response to the 2008 financial crisis, pandemic influenza and infectious-disease mitigation, cybersecurity, and congressional investigations, among many other subjects.
Mr. Lehotsky was a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
Stephen Markman was appointed Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court on October 1, 1999. He served as the Chief Justice from 2017-2019. Before his appointment, he served as Judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1995-1999. Prior to this, he practiced law with the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone in Detroit.
From 1989-1993, Justice Markman served as United States Attorney, or federal prosecutor, in Michigan, after having been nominated by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. From 1985-1989, he served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, after having been nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate. In that position, he headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, which served as the principal policy development office within the Department, and which coordinated the federal judicial selection process. Prior to this, he served for seven years as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and as Deputy Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Justice Markman has authored articles for such publications as the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Detroit College of Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Criminal Justice Law Review, the Barrister’s Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the American University Law Review. He has also served as a contributing editor of National Review magazine, and has authored chapters in such books as “In the Name of Justice: The Aims of the Criminal Law,” “Still the Law of the Land,” and “Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate.”
Justice Markman has taught constitutional law at Hillsdale College since 1993. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He traveled to Ukraine on two occasions on behalf of the State Department, to provide assistance in the development of that nation’s post-Soviet constitution. He is a Fellow of the Michigan Bar Foundation, a Master of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and a member of the One Hundred Club. He has spoken before hundreds of youth, civic, charitable, and legal groups throughout Michigan and nationally, and has coached Little League baseball and basketball. He lives with his wife Mary Kathleen in Mason, and has two sons, James and Charles.
Justice Markman was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2000, 2004, and 2012. His present term expires January 1, 2021.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Nou is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Nou’s main research interests are in administrative law, executive branch dynamics, regulatory policy, and constitutional separation-of-powers. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a Public Law Fellow at the Law School and also worked as a policy analyst and special assistant at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Nou is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and received an MPhil in Politics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she was a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then to Justice Stephen Breyer of the US Supreme Court. She is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
Associate, Covington & Burling LLP
Kathryn Bi is an Associate at Covington & Burling LLP. She graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 2015 and from Dartmouth College in 2009 where she earned Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts degrees. Prior to law school Kathryn worked for three years as a chemical engineer at DuPont Corporation in Palo Alto and Genzyme Corporation in Boston.
Senior Associate to the President and Secretary of the University of Arizona
Jon Dudas has served as the Senior Associate to the President and Secretary of the University of Arizona since July 2014.
Mr. Dudas spent fourteen years in service to the U.S. Government, and as head of the USPTO, he led a performance-based government agency with 9,000 employees and a nearly $2 billion annual budget. During his tenure, the USPTO achieved record-level performance in meeting key annual objectives, and led key patent cooperation and development missions with China, India, Europe, Brazil and several other countries.
In addition to holding his post as Director of the USPTO from 2004 – 2009, Mr. Dudas’s public sector experience includes serving as Counsel for Legal Policy and Senior Floor Assistant for The Speaker of the House for the U.S. House of Representatives and Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the Committee on the Judiciary. After his appointment as Director of the USPTO, Mr. Dudas was a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP in Washington D.C. and then President of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a national nonprofit that works to educate and inspire children to pursue careers in technology, science and innovation. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Conversant Intellectual Property Management, Inc., of Ottowa, Ontario. Mr. Dudas holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois.
Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center
Steven P. Lehotsky has significant experience developing and executing litigation strategies to help businesses and trade associations address their most important regulatory and public-policy challenges.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller LLP, Mr. Lehotsky directed the litigation strategy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's leading business federation, where he worked from 2013-2021. While at the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center, he served as chief litigation counsel. Mr. Lehotsky led the Chamber's efforts to bring successful challenges to federal, state, and local regulations of business. He also directed the U.S. Chamber's efforts to defend pro-growth regulatory reforms. Mr. Lehotsky also led and implemented the U.S. Chamber’s strategies for filing hundreds of amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate and district courts, and state supreme and appellate courts. He is a frequent speaker at events and conferences on litigation and regulatory trends.
Mr. Lehotsky previously was an attorney at WilmerHale LLP in both the Washington D.C. and Boston offices, where he practiced government and regulatory litigation, appellate litigation, and counseling on constitutional, statutory, and regulatory issues for clients across a wide variety of industry sectors. He also previously practiced as a commercial litigator at Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston.
In addition, Mr. Lehotsky was an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006-2009, advising the White House and executive departments and agencies on constitutional and statutory issues relating to national security, immigration, international sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and other programs, the response to the 2008 financial crisis, pandemic influenza and infectious-disease mitigation, cybersecurity, and congressional investigations, among many other subjects.
Mr. Lehotsky was a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
Stephen Markman was appointed Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court on October 1, 1999. He served as the Chief Justice from 2017-2019. Before his appointment, he served as Judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1995-1999. Prior to this, he practiced law with the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone in Detroit.
From 1989-1993, Justice Markman served as United States Attorney, or federal prosecutor, in Michigan, after having been nominated by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. From 1985-1989, he served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, after having been nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate. In that position, he headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, which served as the principal policy development office within the Department, and which coordinated the federal judicial selection process. Prior to this, he served for seven years as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and as Deputy Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Justice Markman has authored articles for such publications as the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Detroit College of Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Criminal Justice Law Review, the Barrister’s Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the American University Law Review. He has also served as a contributing editor of National Review magazine, and has authored chapters in such books as “In the Name of Justice: The Aims of the Criminal Law,” “Still the Law of the Land,” and “Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate.”
Justice Markman has taught constitutional law at Hillsdale College since 1993. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He traveled to Ukraine on two occasions on behalf of the State Department, to provide assistance in the development of that nation’s post-Soviet constitution. He is a Fellow of the Michigan Bar Foundation, a Master of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and a member of the One Hundred Club. He has spoken before hundreds of youth, civic, charitable, and legal groups throughout Michigan and nationally, and has coached Little League baseball and basketball. He lives with his wife Mary Kathleen in Mason, and has two sons, James and Charles.
Justice Markman was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2000, 2004, and 2012. His present term expires January 1, 2021.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Nou is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Nou’s main research interests are in administrative law, executive branch dynamics, regulatory policy, and constitutional separation-of-powers. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a Public Law Fellow at the Law School and also worked as a policy analyst and special assistant at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Nou is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and received an MPhil in Politics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she was a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then to Justice Stephen Breyer of the US Supreme Court. She is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Chief Economist, Abundance Institute
H. Ross & Helen Workman Research Scholar, Director, Program in I, University of Illinois College of Law
Professor Jay P. Kesan's academic interests are in the areas of technology, law, and business. Specifically, his work focuses on patent law, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, cyberlaw, digital government (e-gov), agricultural biotechnology law, and biofuels regulation. His recent publications can be found on SSRN (Social Science Research Network).
At the University of Illinois, Professor Kesan is appointed in the College of Law, the Institute of Genomic Biology, the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, the Information Trust Institute, the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the College of Business, and the Department of Agricultural & Consumer Economics.
He directs the Program in Intellectual Property & Technology Law at the College of Law. At the Institute of Genomic Biology (IGB), he is group leader of the Business, Economics & Law of Genomic Biology (BioBEL) theme, and he directs research on biofuel law & regulation at the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI).
Most recently, he served as a Thomas A. Edison Scholar at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
His recent awards include: Honorable Mention ($1,000 Award), Competition on Cyberdeterrence conducted by the National Research Council for work on “Thinking Through Active Defense in Cyberspace,” 2011; Microsoft Research Awards in 2011 and 2012 for work on technology standards and patent policy; Best Paper Award for Contributions to Foundations of Electronic Governance at the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV), Beijing, China, Oct. 25-28, 2010; Best Paper Award for "An Empirical Examination of Open Standards Development" (with R. Shah), 41st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2008; Best Paper Award for "An Empirical Study of Open Standards" (with R. Shah) published in the Proceedings of the 8th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, 2007; and IBM Faculty Award in 2006.
His books include: Adopting Open Source Software, A Practical Guide (with Fitzgerald, Russo, Shaikh and Succi), MIT Press (2011); The Commercial Law of Intellectual Property (with Alces, Frisch and See), Aspen Publishing Co. (2003-2014 Cumm. Supp.) (treatise); Intellectual Property in Business Organizations (with Ghosh and Gruner), Lexis-Nexis Publishing Co. (2d ed. 2012) (unique and first-of-its-kind casebook on transactional IP); Defining Values for Research & Technology(Greenough, McConnaughay and Kesan (eds.)), Rowman & Littlefield Publishing (Fall 2006); Intellectual Property: Private Rights, the Public Interest, and the Regulation of Creative Activity (with Ghosh, Gruner & Reis), West Publishing Co. (2d ed. 2010) (casebook); Agricultural Biotechnology and Intellectual Property: Seeds of Change, Kesan (ed.), CABI Publishing Co., Oxford (2007).
He has received numerous, multi-year research grants/awards for his work in the areas of intellectual property and technology regulation from the National Science Foundation, The National Academy of Sciences—Board of Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP), the private sector, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Energy Biosciences Institute, the Federal Judicial Center, the Net Institute, the Coleman Foundation, and the University of Illinois Campus Research Board.
Professor Kesan continues to be professionally active in the areas of patent litigation and technology entrepreneurship. He was appointed by federal judges to serve as a special master in patent litigations, and has served as a technical and legal expert and/or counsel in patent matters. He also serves on the boards of directors/advisors of start-up technology companies.
He participated twice in panels at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Hearings on the Implications of Competition and Patent Law and Policy. He testified about biofuel regulation issues before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He has also worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation on their intellectual property protection and technology commercialization activities in the former Soviet Union countries.
He is regular radio commentator for “Legal Issues in the News,” WILL-AM-FM Illinois Public Radio.
Professor Kesan was a JSPS Invited Fellow and visiting associate professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan and has also served as a Foreign Research Fellow at the Institute of Intellectual Property (IIP) in Tokyo, Japan. He has also taught as a visiting faculty at Georgetown University, DePaul University, Florida State University, and Seattle University.
He serves as faculty editor-in-chief of the University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy, which published its inaugural issue in Spring 2001. He has also developed an online course on "Legal Issues in Technology Entrepreneurship," supported by a grant from the Coleman Foundation.
Professor Kesan received his J.D. summa cum laude from Georgetown University, where he received several awards including Order of the Coif and served as associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Prior to attending law school, Jay Kesan – who also holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering – worked as a research scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. He is a registered patent attorney and practiced at the former firm of Pennie & Edmonds LLP in the areas of patent litigation and patent prosecution. In addition, he has published numerous scientific papers, and he has obtained several patents in the U.S. and abroad.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, The University of Richmond School of Law
Dean Kristen Jakobsen Osenga teaches and writes in the areas of patent law, antitrust, and legislation and regulation. Some of her recent scholarship focuses on standard development organizations, patent eligible subject matter, patent licensing firms, litigation and remedies for patent infringement, and patent law reform. She has written numerous law review articles on these and other topics, as well as book chapters and op eds on various aspects of patent law. Additionally, she has spoken on these issues at many academic conferences and bar events. Dean Osenga is Chief Policy Counselor for the Inventors Defense Alliance, as well as an active member of the Federal Circuit Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Dean Osenga received a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. After law school, she practiced at the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner LLP, (now Finnegan) where she did patent prosecution and litigation. She then clerked for the Judge Richard Linn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After clerking, she entered academia, teaching first at Chicago-Kent College of Law and then at the University of Richmond, where she has been since 2006. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Emory University School of Law and at William & Mary School of Law.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Solicitor General, Kansas, and Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law
Stephen R. McAllister is a native Kansan who grew up in Lucas, Kansas and graduated from Lucas-Luray High School. Growing up, he also lived in Hiawatha and Chanute, Kansas. He received both his B.A. and his J.D. degrees from the University of Kansas.
Following his graduation from law school, Steve clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, and then for Justices Byron White and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. After his clerkships Steve worked in the Washington, D.C. office of the Los Angeles law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
In 1993, Steve returned to his alma mater as a visiting professor of law. In 1999 he received tenure and promotion to the rank of full Professor. He served as Dean of the KU Law School from 2000 – 2005.
As a professor, Steve teaches constitutional law, constitutional litigation and torts. He won the Frederick J. Moreau Award for student advising in 1997, and a W.T. Kemper Award for excellence in teaching in 1999. As a scholar, Steve has written on a variety of constitutional topics, including affirmative action, capital punishment, federalism, and sex offender laws. Steve is an elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Steve also has appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States several times. From 1999 – 2003, he served as the first State Solicitor for Kansas, assisting the Kansas Attorney General’s office in state cases raising important constitutional issues. In both 2001 and 2002, Supreme Court briefs that Steve authored for the State of Kansas won Best Brief Prizes at the annual summer meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.
From May 2006 until March 2007, Steve served as Legislative Counsel for Kansas, advising the legislature regarding legal issues. In that capacity, Steve participated in the Kansas school finance litigation in the Kansas Supreme Court, filing a brief on behalf of the Kansas Legislature and presenting oral argument on behalf of the State as a special assistant attorney general. Since May 2007, Steve has served as Solicitor General of Kansas in the office of the Kansas Attorney General, briefing and arguing important cases involving abortion, the death penalty, freedom of speech, and right to a jury trial.
Steve speaks regularly on a variety of constitutional topics, as well as judicial confirmation and the Supreme Court as an institution.
Clerk, Judge Richard Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit 1988-89; Clerk, Justice Byron White, U.S. Supreme Court 1989-91; Clerk, Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court 1991-1992; Associate, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, DC, 1992-93; Visiting Associate Professor, Kansas 1993-95, Associate Professor, Kansas 1995-98, Professor since 1999; Associate Dean of Academic Affairs 1999-2000; Dean 2000-2005; Interim Director, Dole Institute of Politics 2003-04.
J.D. 1988, Kansas, Articles Editor, University of Kansas Law Review; B.A. 1985, Kansas
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states – Nevada and Montana. At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.
Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.
Judge, United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma
Patrick Wyrick serves as a United States District Court Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma. He was nominated for that position by the President, and assumed duty on April 12, 2019. Before being appointed a federal judge, Wyrick served as Vice Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Wyrick served six years as Oklahoma's Solicitor General.
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Professor Mulligan teaches Internet law, intellectual property law, and trusts & estates. Her research addresses efforts to adapt intellectual property law for the digital age, the relationship between law and technology, and theories of constitutional interpretation. Recently, she has written about the Internet of Things, robot punishment, and early translations of the Constitution.
While at Brooklyn, Professor Mulligan researched as a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and taught as a visiting associate professor at Yale Law School. Previously, she taught at the University of Georgia and was a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. Her scholarship has been published in a variety of journals and law reviews, including Georgia Law Review, SMU Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary.
Professor Mulligan earned her bachelor’s degree cum laude and her law degree cum laude from Harvard University, where she worked as a production and article editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Before entering academia, she served as a law clerk for Judge Charles F. Lettow of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
President, The Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In May 2025, Anderson was appointed by President Trump to the Religious Liberty Commission.
He is the author or co-author of five books, including the just-released Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. Previous books include When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. He is the co-editor of A Liberalism Safe for Catholicism? Perspectives from “The Review of Politics.”
Anderson’s research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in two Supreme Court cases.
He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and he received his doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation was titled: “Neither Liberal Nor Libertarian: A Natural Law Approach to Social Justice and Economic Rights.”
Anderson has made appearances on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. His work has been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Harvard Health Policy Review, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, and National Review.
He is the John Paul II Teaching Fellow in Social Thought at the University of Dallas, a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University, and a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, as well as the Founding Editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.
For 9 years he was the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy and political science at Christendom College, and a Visiting Fellow at the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. He has also served as an assistant editor of First Things.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy
Mr. Green helps clients litigate constitutional, statutory, and regulatory issues in courts and agencies throughout the country. Before joining the firm, he served as the Solicitor General of the State of Utah for five years. In that role, he oversaw all civil and criminal appellate matters in which the State of Utah or its officers or agencies were a party. While serving as solicitor general, he successfully argued cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and the Utah Supreme Court. He also led the Utah Attorney General office’s multistate litigation efforts, both challenging and defending regulatory actions by the federal government and other states. And he oversaw the division of the Utah Attorney General’s office responsible for defending cases challenging the constitutionality of state law. Before his service to the State of Utah, Mr. Green was Deputy Chief Counsel for Litigation at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. He began his career at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP’s Washington, D.C. office, where he litigated a variety of appellate and trial-court cases. Mr. Green served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court, to Judge Michael McConnell at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and to Judge Paul Cassell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. He earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Utah. At the College of Law, he served as Editor in Chief of the Utah Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif and first in his class. He currently serves on the Utah Supreme Court’s advisory committee for the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure and has been named one of Utah’s Legal Elite by Utah Business magazine.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Panel II: Current Issues in Patent Law
Danny J. Boggs, A. Douglas Melamed, Michael J. Meurer, Adam K. Mortara, Phyllis Turner-Brim
Our patent system has historically been thought to be an engine of innovation, but it...
Panel I: Innovation and the Administrative State
William Baude, Kathryn Bi, Jon Dudas, Steven Lehotsky, Steve J. Markman, Jennifer Nou
Regulation can be a significant barrier to innovation, protecting incumbents and making it harder to...
Panel I: Innovation and the Administrative State
William Baude, Kathryn Bi, Jon Dudas, Steven Lehotsky, Steve J. Markman, Jennifer Nou
Regulation can be a significant barrier to innovation, protecting incumbents and making it harder to...
Patent Reform Update: Studying the Studies on Patent Litigation
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San Diego, CaliforniaObamacare, Immigration Executive Order and Other Transformative Lawsuits: A Conversation with 4 Current Solicitors General
Berkeley, CaliforniaNet Neutrality and Its Practical Effects
Mineola, New YorkObergefell v. Hodges: Same-Sex Marriage and the 14th Amendment
Fort Worth, TexasHotspots in Business Litigation
Charlotte, North CarolinaThe Current State of Firearm Regulation