Intellectual Property: Faculty Highlights

Scalia Law is home to one of the nation’s most knowledgeable and prestigious faculty in the area of intellectual property. Learn more about some of our most impressive IP faculty members below. For full faculty profiles, visit the Faculty Directory.

SEAN O'CONNOR

Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy
BA, University of Massachusetts; MA, Arizona State University; JD, Stanford University

O’Connor, noted innovation law scholar, is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2) at George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School. He is heading a newly launched Innovation Law Clinic to support the emerging, dynamic tech sector in the DMV (DC, MD, No VA). O'Connor was previously Boeing International Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law. His 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.

CHRISTOPHER NEWMAN

IP LLM Program Director, Associate Professor of Law
B.A., St. John's College in Annapolis, MD; J.D., University of Michigan

Professor Christopher Newman graduate magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1999, where he served as book review editor for the Michigan Law Review and received Michigan’s highest law school award, the Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship. Following law school, Professor Newman was a clerk for the Honorable Alex Kozinski of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with whom he co-published What’s So Fair About Fair Use? From 2000-07, he was a litigation associate with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles, where he represented clients in disputes involving contracts, business torts, intellectual property, corporate and securities litigation, and appellate matters, as well as pro bono family and criminal law matters. Professor Newman left practice at the beginning of 2007 to serve an Olin/Searle Fellowship in Law at the UCLA School of Law, where he focused on his research and writing in the areas of property theory and intellectual property. From January 2008 until his arrival at Scalia Law, he served as a research fellow of UCLA’s Intellectual Property Project.

THE HONORABLE JOHN F. WITHERSPOON

Professor and Director Emeritus, Intellectual Property Program
B.S., University of Illinois; M.Ed., University of Illinois; M.S., University of Illinois; J.D., Georgetown University

Professor and Director Emeritus, Intellectual Property Program,The Honorable John F. Witherspoon was for many years the director of the law school's Intellectual Property Law track. He joined the faculty as an adjunct in 1992. Professor Witherspoon also practices patent law in his own firm in Washington, D.C. He previously served as an examiner-in-chief and member, Board of Appeals, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and clerked for the Honorable Giles S. Rich, U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit).

TUN-JEN CHIANG

Associate Professor of Law
B.Com., University of Melbourne; LL.B., University of Melbourne; J.D., University of Chicago Law School

Professor Tun-Jen Chiang arrived at Scalia Law after having been an associate with business litigation firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhard Oliver & Hedges, LLP, in Silicon Valley, California, since 2005. Prior to this, he was a law clerk to Judge Timothy B. Dyk of the Federal Circuit. Professor Chiang was awarded his JD with honors by the University of Chicago Law School, where he was comment editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. His primary area of research is in patent law.