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.
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)]
Jorge L Contreras (12/2015). Sharing by Design: Data and Decentralized Commons. Science.
Jorge L Contreras (06/2015). A Brief History of FRAND: Analyzing Current Debates in Standard-Setting and Antitrust through a Historical Lens. 80, 39-120.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). A Market Reliance Theory for FRAND Commitments and Other Patent Pledges.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). A Unified Framework for RAND and other Reasonable Royalties.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). NIH’s Genomic Data Sharing Policy: Timing and Tradeoffs. Trends Genet.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). Patent Pledges.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). Patent Pledges: Middle Ground Between The Public Domain And Patent Exclusivity.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). Standards, Royalty Stacking and Collective Action.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). Intellectual Property Issues and Synthetic Biology Standards. Nat Biotechnol.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2015). A Practical Guide to Patent Policies of Standards Development Organizations.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Developing A Framework For Arbitrating Standards-Essential Patent Disputes.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Copyright Termination and Technical Standards.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Standards, Patents and the National Smart Grid.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Divergent Patterns of Engagement in Internet Standardization: Japan, Korea and China.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). No Matter How Small... Property, Autonomy and State in Horton Hears a Who!
Jorge L Contreras (01/2013). Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2013). Confronting the Crisis in Scientific Publishing: Latency, Licensing and Access.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2013). Technical Standards and Ex Ante Disclosure: Results and Analysis of an Empirical Study.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2013). Intellectual Property Landscape of Material Sustainability Standards.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2013). The International Serious Adverse Events Consortium’s Data Sharing Model.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2012). Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2012). Implementing Procedural Safeguards for the Development of Bioinformatics Interoperability Standards.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2011). Bermuda’s Legacy: Patents, Policy and the Design of the Genome Commons.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2011). Toward a Rational Framework for Sustainable Building Materials, Standards Engineering.
Book
Jorge L Contreras (10/26/2021). The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA . Algonquin.
Jorge L Contreras (04/30/2021). Utah Real Property Law. Utah State Bar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2021). Injunctions in Patent Law: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Flexibility and Tailoring. Cambridge University Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2019). Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law. Cambridge University Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2019). Patent Remedies and Complex Products: Toward a Global Consensus. Cambridge University Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). 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). Edward Elgar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Vol. 1 - Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. Cambridge University Press.
Jorge Contreras (01/2016).
Jorge L Contreras (01/01/2013). Bioinformatics Law: Legal Issues for Computational Biology in the Post-Genome Era. ABA.
Book Chapter
Jorge L Contreras (05/2021). Direct to Consumer Genomics and Personal Health Data. In Consuming Genetics. Consuming Genetics.
Jorge Contreras (01/2019). The Effect of FRAND Commitments on Patent Remedies, in Patent Remedies and Complex Products: Toward a Global Consensus. Cambridge University Press.
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.
Jorge Contreras (01/2019). Conflicts of Interest and Academic Research in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
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.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2018). Injunctive Relief in U.S. Patent Cases in Injunctions in Patent Law. Wolters Kluwer.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2018). 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. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2018). Patents, Standards and Borders in Megaregionalism: Innovation and Trade Within Global Networks, Ch. 12. In World Scientific Studies in International Economics. World Scientific Studies in International Economics.
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).
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Development of the Personal Genomics Industry in Genetics, Ethics and Education. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Leviathan in the Commons: Biomedical Data and the State, in Governing Medical Knowledge Commons, CH. 2. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). 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. Springer.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Origins of FRAND Licensing Commitments in the United States and Europe in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Form and Variation in FRAND and other Standards Licensing Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents, Ch. 10. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Enforcing FRAND and Other SDO Licensing Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents, Ch. 11 . In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Non-Discrimination and FRAND Commitments in Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Essentiality and Standards-Essential Patents in Cambridge Handbook of technical Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Alternative Dispute Resolution and FRAND Disputes in Cambridge Handbook of Standardization Law: Competition, Antitrust, and Patents. In Cambridge Univ. Press. Cambridge Univ. Press.
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.
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.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). A Patent Pledge Taxonomy in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). Patent Pledge Enforcement Theories in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2017). A Registry for Patent Pledges in Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives on Patent Law's Private Ordering Frontier. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge Contreras (01/2016). Big Genomic Data and the State. In Big Data is not a Monolith: Policies, Practices, and Problems (Ekiba Hamid, Michael Mattioli & Cassidy Sugimoto, eds. (MIT Press)) (pp. 93-103). Big Data is not a Monolith: Policies, Practices, and Problems (Ekiba Hamid, Michael Mattioli & Cassidy Sugimoto, eds. (MIT Press)).
Jorge Contreras (01/2016).
Jorge L Contreras (01/2016). Patents and Internet Standards in Mapping the Digital Frontiers of Trade and Intellectual Property – Research Vol. 3, Ch. 2. Global Comm’n on Internet Governance.
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.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2016). Optimizing Access Policies for Big Data Repositories: Latency Variables and the Genome Commons in Big Data Optimization: Recent Developments and Challenges. In Springer Intl. Springer Intl.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2016). FRAND Commitments under U.S. Antitrust Law in Intellectual Property Rights and Management Accountability: A New Perspective. In Editorial Gramma. Editorial Gramma.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2016). Standards and Related Intellectual Property Issues for Climate Change Technology, in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Climate Chang. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge Contreras (01/2016). A Primer on Intellectual Property Policies of Standards Bodies in Effective Standardization Management in Corporate Settings. In IGI Global. IGI Global.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2016). Catalyzing Technology Development Through University Research, in Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Climate Change. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Constructing the Genome Commons in Governing Knowledge Commons. Oxford Univ. Press.
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.
Jorge L Contreras (01/2014). Standards, Patents and the National Smart Grid, in Intellectual Property, Innovation and the Environment. In Edward Elgar. Edward Elgar.
Other
Jorge L Contreras (01/2011). Equity, Antitrust and the Reemergence of the Patent Unenforceability Remedy. Antitrust Source.