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Jorge Contreras, JD

Academic Information

Departments Adjunct - Human Genetics

Jorge L. Contreras 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 Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.

Professor Contreras has written or edited eleven books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and book chapters. His most recent 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 2021-22 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).

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.

RECENT BOOKS

The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021)

Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice (NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022)

Injunctions in Patent Law: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Flexibility and Tailoring (Jorge L. Contreras & Martin Husovec, eds., Cambridge University Press: 2022)

Bioinformatics, Medical Informatics and the Law (Jorge L. Contreras, A. James Cuticchia & Gregory Kirsch, eds., Edward Elgar: 2022)

Patent Remedies and Complex Products: Toward a Global Consensus (C. Bradford Biddle, Jorge L. Contreras, Brian J. Love, Norman V. Siebrasse, eds., NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019)

The Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law (Jorge L. Contreras, ed., NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017, 2019)

Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law’s Private Ordering Frontier (Jorge L. Contreras & Meredith Jacob, eds., Edward Elgar, 2017)

SELECTED ARTICLES

"In the Public Interest” - University Technology Transfer and the Nine Points Document – An Empirical Assessment, 13 U. Cal. Irvine L. Rev. (2023, forthcoming)

Transplanting Anti-Suit Injunctions, 71 Am. U. L. Rev. 1537 (2022) (with Peter K. Yu & Yu Yang)

Science Fiction and the Law: A New Wigmorian Bibliography, 13 Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. 65 (2022)

Sui-Genericide, 106 Iowa L. Rev. 1041 (2021)

Patent Reality Checks—Eliminating Patents on Fake, Impossible and Other Inoperative Inventions, 102 J. Patent & Trademark Off. Soc’y 3 (2021) [Winner: Patent & Trademark Office Society – 2022 Rossman Memorial Award]

The Open COVID Pledge: Design, Implementation and Preliminary Assessment of an Intellectual Property Commons, 2021 Utah L. Rev. 833 (2021)

Rationalizing U.S. Standardization Policy: A Proposal for Institutional Reform, 35 Antitrust 41 (2021) [Finalist: 2021 Antitrust Writing Awards – Best Antitrust Article of the Year]

“Not” Madison, CPI Antitrust Chron., Jul. 2021

Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics: A Critical Reassessment, 27 Mich. Tech. L. Rev. 1 (2020)

Credit for and Control of Research Outputs in Genomic Citizen Science, 21 Annual Rev. Genomics & Human Genetics 465 (2020) (with Christi J. Guerrini)

The False Promise of Health Data Ownership, 94 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 624 (2019)

Global Rate-Setting: A Solution for Standards Essential Patents? 94 Wash. L. Rev. 701 (2019)

Much Ado About Holdup, 2019 U. Ill. L. Rev. 875 (2019) [Finalist: 2019 Antitrust Writing Awards – Best Antitrust Article of the Year]

Pledging Patents for the Public Good: Rise and Fall of the Eco-Patent Commons, 57 Houston L. Rev. 61 (2019) (with Bronwyn H. Hall & Christian Helmers)

The New Extraterritoriality: FRAND Royalties, Anti-Suit Injunctions and the Global Race to the Bottom in Disputes over Standards-Essential Patents, 25 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 251 (2019)

Litigation of Standards-Essential Patents in Europe: A Comparative Analysis, 32 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1457 (2018) (with Fabian Gaessler, Christian Helmers & Brian J. Love)

The Anticommons at 20: Concerns for Research Continue, 361 Science 335 (2018)

The Genomic Commons, 19 Annual Rev. Genomics & Human Genetics 429 (2018) (with Bartha M. Knoppers)

Are PAEs Different? The Legal Treatment of Patent Assertion Entities in Europe and the United States, 2 IEEE Communication Standards 80 (2018) (with Peter Georg Picht)

From Private Ordering to Public Law: The Legal Framework Governing Standards-Essential Patents, 30 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 211 (2017)

Rationalizing FRAND Royalties: Can Interpleader Save the Internet of Things? 36 Rev. Litig. 285 (2017) (with Jason R. Bartlett)

Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey, 50 Vand. Transnational L.J. 1 (2017) (with Rohini Lakshané)

CRISPR, surrogate licensing, and scientific discovery, 355 Science 698 (2017) (with Jacob S. Sherkow)

Solar Climate Engineering and Intellectual Property: Toward a Research Commons, 18 Minn. J. L. Sci. & Tech. 1 (2017) (with Jesse L. Reynolds & Joshua D. Sarnoff)

Genetic Property 105 Geo. L.J. 1 (2016)

Narratives of Gene Patenting, 43 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 1133 (2016)

Pre-Competition, 95 N.C. L. Rev. 67 (2016) (with Liza Vertinsky)

A Brief History of FRAND: Analyzing Current Debates in Standard-Setting and Antitrust through a Historical Lens, 80 Antitrust L.J. 39 (2015)

Patent Pledges, 47 Ariz. St. L.J. 543 (2015)

Sharing by Design: Data and Decentralized Commons, 350 Science 1312 (2015) (with Jerome H. Reichman)

A Unified Framework for RAND and other Reasonable Royalties, 30 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1447 (2015) (with Richard J. Gilbert)

A Market Reliance Theory for FRAND Commitments and Other Patent Pledges, 2015 Utah L. Rev. 479 (2015)

Divergent Patterns of Engagement in Internet Standardization: Japan, Korea and China, 38 Telecom. Policy 916 (2014)

Developing A Framework for Arbitrating Standards-Essential Patent Disputes, 2014 J. Dispute Resol. 23 (2014) (with David L. Newman)

Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing, 79 Antitrust L.J. 47 (2013)

Technical Standards and Ex Ante Disclosure: Results and Analysis of an Empirical Study, 53 Jurimetrics 163 (2013)

Intellectual Property Landscape of Material Sustainability Standards, 14 Columbia Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 485 (2013) (with Charles R. McManis)

Standards, Patents and the National Smart Grid, 32 Pace L. Rev. 641 (2012) (symposium issue) [Winner: 2014 Elizabeth Payne Cubberly Scholar Award (American University Washington College of Law)] [Reprinted in Intellectual Property, Innovation and the Environment (Peter S. Menell & Sarah M. Tran, eds., 2014)]

Bermuda’s Legacy: Patents, Policy and the Design of the Genome Commons, 12 Minn. J.L., Sci. & Tech. 61 (2011)

Equity, Antitrust and the Reemergence of the Patent Unenforceability Remedy, Antitrust Source (Oct. 2011)

Data Sharing, Latency Variables and Science Commons, 25 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1601 (2010)

Prepublication Data Release, Latency, and Genome Commons, 329 Science 393 (2010)

Education History

Undergraduate Rice University
 BSEE
Undergraduate Rice University
 BA
Graduate Training Harvard Law School
 JD

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Jorge L. Contrera (2021). Sui-Genericide. 106, 1041.
  2. Jorge L. Contrera (2020). Is Biopharma Ready for the Standards Wars?.
  3. Jorge L. Contrera (2020). Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics: A Critical Reassessment.
  4. Luis Gil Abinader & Jorge L. Contreras (01/2019). The Patentability of Genetic Therapies: Car-T and Medical Treatment Exclusions Around The World.
  5. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2019). Liability (and) Rules for Health Information.
  6. Jorge L. Contreras (05/2019). Understanding Balance Requirement for Standards Development Organizations.
  7. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Much Ado About Holdup.
  8. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Global Rate-Setting: A Solution for Standards Essential Patents?. 94, 701.
  9. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Commentary ¿ Responding to Delrahim on IP.
  10. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Extraterritoriality and the Global Race to the Bottom in Standardized Product Licensing.
  11. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Private Law, Conflicts of Law, and a Lex Mercatoria of Standards Development Organizations.
  12. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). The False Promise of Health Data Ownership. 94, 624.
  13. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2018). Considerations Regarding a Canadian Patent Collective.
  14. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2018). The Global Standards Wars: Patent and Competition Disputes in North America, Europe and Asia.
  15. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Assessing the Effectiveness of the Eco-Patent Commons: A post-mortem analysis.
  16. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Intellectual Property, Surrogate Licensing, and Precision Medicine.
  17. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). The Genomic Commons.
  18. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). The Evolving Patent Pledge Landscape.
  19. Lisa Anne Cannon-Albrigh (2018). A Population Genealogy Resource shows evidence of familial clustering for Alzheimer's Disease. Neurology,
  20. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). The Anticommons at 20: Concerns for Research Continue. Science (New York, N.Y.),
  21. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Litigation of Standards-Essential Patents in Europe: A Comparative Analysis.
  22. Patient Data Ownershi (2018). Patient Data Ownership.
  23. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Intellectual Property Policies for Solar Geoengineering.
  24. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2017). Patent Assertion Entities and Legal Exceptionalism in Europe and the United States, a Comparative View.
  25. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey.
  26. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Global Markets, Competition and FRAND Royalties: The Many Implications of Unwired Planet v. Huawei.
  27. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products.
  28. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Rationalizing FRAND Royalties: Can Interpleader Save the Internet of Things?.
  29. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Frontiers in Precision Medicine II: Cancer, Big Data and the Public.
  30. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). CRISPR, surrogate licensing, and scientific discovery. Science (New York, N.Y.),
  31. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Model Jury Instructions for Reasonable Royalty Patent Damages. 57, 1.
  32. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Solar Climate Engineering and Intellectual Property: Toward a Research Common.
  33. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Aggregated Royalties for Top-Down FRAND Determinations: Revisiting `Joint Negotiation¿.
  34. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). From Private Ordering to Public Law: The Legal Framework Governing Standards-Essential Patents.
  35. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Narratives of Gene Patenting. 43, 1133.
  36. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). The President Says Patients Should Own their Genetic Data. He's Wrong. Nature biotechnology,
  37. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Patents and Internet Standards.
  38. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Pre-Competition. 95, 67-131.
  39. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). FRAND Market Failure: IPXI's Standards-Essential Patent License Exchange. 15,
  40. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). When a Stranger Calls: Standards Outsiders and Unencumbered Patents. 12, 507-540.
  41. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). A Tale of Two Networks: Patents, Standards and the Internet. 93, 855-897.
  42. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Common Knowledge and Non-Patent Literature in the Internet Age.
  43. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Genetic Property. 105, 1-54.
  44. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Frontiers in Precision Medicine: Exploring Science and Policy Boundaries.
  45. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). Patent Pledges: Middle Ground Between The Public Domain And Patent Exclusivity.
  46. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). A Practical Guide to Patent Policies of Standards Development Organizations.
  47. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). NIH's Genomic Data Sharing Policy: Timing and Tradeoffs. Trends in genetics,
  48. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). Sharing by Design: Data and Decentralized Commons. Science (New York, N.Y.),
  49. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). A Unified Framework for RAND and other Reasonable Royalties.
  50. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). Standards, Royalty Stacking and Collective Action.
  51. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). A Brief History of FRAND: Analyzing Current Debates in Standard-Setting and Antitrust through a Historical Lens. 80, 39-120.
  52. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). Patent Pledges.
  53. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). Intellectual Property Issues and Synthetic Biology Standards. Nature biotechnology,
  54. Jorge L. Contrera (2015). A Market Reliance Theory for FRAND Commitments and Other Patent Pledges.
  55. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). No Matter How Small... Property, Autonomy and State in Horton Hears a Who!.
  56. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). Divergent Patterns of Engagement in Internet Standardization: Japan, Korea and China.
  57. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). Copyright Termination and Technical Standards.
  58. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). Developing A Framework For Arbitrating Standards-Essential Patent Disputes.
  59. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). Standards, Patents and the National Smart Grid.
  60. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2013). Confronting the Crisis in Scientific Publishing: Latency, Licensing and Access.
  61. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2013). Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing.
  62. Jorge L. Contrera (2013). Technical Standards and Ex Ante Disclosure: Results and Analysis of an Empirical Study.
  63. Jorge L. Contrera (2013). Intellectual Property Landscape of Material Sustainability Standards.
  64. Jorge L. Contrera (2013). The International Serious Adverse Events Consortium's Data Sharing Model.
  65. Jorge L. Contrera (2012). Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World.
  66. Jorge L. Contrera (2012). Implementing Procedural Safeguards for the Development of Bioinformatics Interoperability Standards.
  67. Jorge L. Contrera (2011). Bermuda's Legacy: Patents, Policy and the Design of the Genome Commons.
  68. Jorge L. Contrera (2011). Toward a Rational Framework for Sustainable Building Materials, Standards Engineering.

Book

  1. Jorge L. Contrera (2021). Injunctions in Patent Law: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Flexibility and Tailoring.
  2. Jorge L. Contrera (2021). The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA.
  3. Jorge L. Contrera (2021). Utah Real Property Law.
  4. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law.
  5. Jorge L. Contrera (2019). Patent Remedies and Complex Products: Toward a Global Consensus.
  6. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier. Reviewed: 13(5) J. Intell. Prop. L. & Practice 423-24 (2018); IPKAT Blog, May 4, 2018; 14(3) Manchester J. Intl. Econ. L. 397-399 (2017).
  7. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Vol. 1 - Competition, Antitrust, and Patents.
  8. Jorge Contreras (01/2016).
  9. Jorge L. Contrera (2013). Bioinformatics Law: Legal Issues for Computational Biology in the Post-Genome Era.

Book Chapter

  1. Jorge L. Contrera (2021). Direct to Consumer Genomics and Personal Health Data.
  2. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2019). Trademarks, Certification Marks and Technical Standards in Cambridge Handbook of technical Standardization Law, Vol 2. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  3. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2019). Termination of Copyright Transfers and Technical Standards in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law, Vol 2. In Cambridge Uni. Press. Cambridge Uni. Press.
  4. Jorge Contrera (2019). Conflicts of Interest and Academic Research in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer.
  5. Jorge Contrera (2019). The Effect of FRAND Commitments on Patent Remedies, in Patent Remedies and Complex Products: Toward a Global Consensus.
  6. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Technical Standards, Standards-Setting Organizations and Intellectual Property: A Survey of the Literature (With an Emphasis on Empirical Approaches), in Research Handbook on the Economics of Intellectual Property Law, Vol. II ¿ Analytical Methods.
  7. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Injunctive Relief in U.S. Patent Cases in Injunctions in Patent Law.
  8. Jorge L. Contrera (2018). Patents, Standards and Borders in Megaregionalism: Innovation and Trade Within Global Networks, Ch. 12.
  9. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2017). The Anti-Suit Injunction: A Transnational Remedy for Multi-Jurisdictional SEP Litigation in Cambridge Handbook of Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  10. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2017). Assertion of Standards-Essential Patents by Non-Practicing Entities in Patent Assertion Entities and Competition Policy. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  11. Jorge Contreras (01/2017). Assertion of Standards-Essential Patents by Non-Practicing Entities. In PATENT ASSERTION ENTITIES AND COMPETITION POLICY (D. Daniel Sokol, ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press) (pp. 50-71). PATENT ASSERTION ENTITIES AND COMPETITION POLICY (D. Daniel Sokol, ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press).
  12. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Non-Discrimination and FRAND Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents.
  13. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). National Disparities and Standards-Essential Patents: Considerations for India in Complications and Quandries in the ICT Sector: Standard Essential Patents and Competition Issues, Ch. 1.
  14. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Leviathan in the Commons: Biomedical Data and the State, in Governing Medical Knowledge Commons, CH. 2.
  15. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Development of the Personal Genomics Industry in Genetics, Ethics and Education.
  16. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Origins of FRAND Licensing Commitments in the United States and Europe in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents.
  17. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Patent Pledge Enforcement Theories in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier.
  18. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Enforcing FRAND and Other SDO Licensing Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents, Ch. 11.
  19. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Alternative Dispute Resolution and FRAND Disputes in Cambridge Handbook of Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents.
  20. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). A Registry for Patent Pledges in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier.
  21. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). A Patent Pledge Taxonomy in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier.
  22. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Essentiality and Standards-Essential Patents in Cambridge Handbook of technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents.
  23. Jorge L. Contrera (2017). Form and Variation in FRAND and other Standards Licensing Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents, Ch. 10.
  24. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2016). Big Genomic Data and the State, in Big Data is Not A Monolith: Policies, Practices and Problems, Ch. 7 at 93-103. In MIT Press. MIT Press.
  25. Jorge Contrera (2016). A Primer on Intellectual Property Policies of Standards Bodies in Effective Standardization Management in Corporate Settings.
  26. Jorge Contrera (2016). Big Genomic Data and the State. 93-103.
  27. Jorge Contrera (2016).
  28. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Optimizing Access Policies for Big Data Repositories: Latency Variables and the Genome Commons in Big Data Optimization: Recent Developments and Challenges.
  29. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Standards and Related Intellectual Property Issues for Climate Change Technology, in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Climate Chang.
  30. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Patents and Internet Standards in Mapping the Digital Frontiers of Trade and Intellectual Property ¿ Research Vol. 3, Ch. 2.
  31. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). FRAND Commitments under U.S. Antitrust Law in Intellectual Property Rights and Management Accountability: A New Perspective.
  32. Jorge L. Contrera (2016). Catalyzing Technology Development Through University Research, in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Climate Change.
  33. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2014). Standards, Patents and the National Smart Grid, in Intellectual Property, Innovation and the Environment. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
  34. Jorge L. Contreras (01/2014). Compulsory Licensing of Intellectual Property: A Viable Policy Lever for Promoting Access to Critical Technologies? in Trips and Developing Countries ¿ Towards a New IP World Order? In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
  35. Jorge L. Contrera (2014). Constructing the Genome Commons in Governing Knowledge Commons.

Other

  1. Jorge L. Contrera (2011). Equity, Antitrust and the Reemergence of the Patent Unenforceability Remedy.

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