Position: Professor

TEL: (hidden)

FAX: 510-643-2673

Email: Click Here

Website: (hidden)

Admitted: California

Law School: J.D., Harvard Law School (1986); Ph.D., Stanford University (1986)

College: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980); M.A., Stanford University (1982)

Birth Date and Place: 

Practice Areas: Technology Law

Additional Information: 

After earning his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics, Peter Menell clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He joined the Boalt faculty in 1990 and co-founded the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology in 1995, where he served as Executive Director from 1999 to 2005 and serves as a director. Professor Menell has taught at Georgetown University Law Center, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), and Tel Aviv University. He has organized more than forty intellectual property education programs for the Federal Judicial Center since 1998. He has advised the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and major technology and entertainment companies on a wide range of intellectual property and antitrust matters. He served as Vice-Chair of the National Academies of Sciences project on copyright and innovation. In 2013, he delivered the 42nd Brace Lecture, the U.S. Copyright Society’s major annual lecture. In 2012-13, he served as one of the inaugural Thomas Alva Edison Visiting Professionals at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. He writes regular commentaries on copyright law and policy that appear on the Media Institute website and has submitted amicus briefs in many important intellectual property cases. Professor Menell has authored numerous books and treatises: Intellectual Property, Innovation, and the Environment (with S. Tran 2014); Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age (with R. Merges and M. Lemley, 6th ed. 2012, 5th ed. 2010, 4th rev. ed. 2007, 4th ed. 2006, 3d ed. 2003, 2nd ed. 2000, 1st ed. 1997); Patent Case Management Judicial Guide (Federal Judicial Center 1st ed. 2009 (with L. Pasahow, J. Pooley, M. Powers, S. Carlson, and J. Homrig), 2d ed. 2012 (adding S. Carlson and J. Homrig), 3rd ed. forthcoming 2014)); Section 337 Patent Investigation Management Guide (1st ed, 2012 (with G. Busey, R. Cordell, M. Davis, M. Powers, and S. Sobin, 2nd ed. (Lexis 2013) (adding C. Chien)); Software and Internet Law (1st ed. 2000 (with M. Lemley, R. Merges, and P. Samuelson), 2nd ed. 2003, 3rd ed. 2006, 4th ed. 2011); Trademark, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (with B. Beebe, T. Cotter, M. Lemley, & R. Merges) (2011); Environmental Law (International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory (Second Series) 2002); Property Law and Policy (with J. Dwyer, 1998); and Environmental Law and Policy (with R. Stewart, 1994). He founded and supervises the Annual Review of Law and Technology (now in its 18th year, published by the Berkeley Technology Law Journal) and founded (and supervised the first four issues of) the Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resource Law (published by the Ecology Law Quarterly). Professor Menell’s recent articles include: This American Copyright Life: Reflections on Re-Equilibrating Copyright for the Internet Age, Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. (forthcoming 2014); Informal Deference: An Historical, Empirical, and Normative Analysis of the Standard of Appellate Review for Patent Claim Construction, 108 Northwestern University Law Review 1 (2014) (with J. Anderson); 2014: Brand Totalitarianism, 47 UC Davis Law Review 787 (2014); Using Fee Shifting to Promote Fair Use and Fair Licensing, 102 California Law Review 53 (2014) (with B. Depoorter); Property: Legal Aspects, in James D. Wright, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed. forthcoming 2014); Notice Failure and Notice Externalities, 5 Journal of Legal Analysis 1 (2013) (with M. Meurer); The Mixed Heritage of Federal Intellectual Property Law and Ramifications for Statutory Interpretation, in Intellectual Property and the Common Law (Shyam Balganesh, ed., 2013); Governance of Intellectual Resources and the Disintegration of Intellectual Property in the Digital Age, Berkeley Technology Law Journal (2012); Infringement Conflation, Stanford Law Review (2012); Forty Years of Wondering in the Wilderness and No Closer to the Promised Land: Bilski‘s Superficial Textualism and the Missed Opportunity to Return Patent Law to its Technology Mooring, 63 Stanford Law Review 1289 (2011); In Search of Copyright’s Lost Ark: Interpreting the Right to Distribute in the Internet Age, 59 Journal of the Copyright Society 1 (2011); The Historic Right of Publication, Nimmer on Copyright, Section 4.04[D] (Release 85, 2011) (with D. Nimmer); Definition of “Publication,” Nimmer on Copyright, Section 4.03 (Release 85, 2011) (with D. Nimmer); The Distribution Right, Nimmer on Copyright, Section 8.11 (Release 85, 2011) (with D. Nimmer); Patent Claim Construction: A Modern Synthesis and Structured Framework, Berkeley Technology Law Journal (2010) (with M. Powers and S. Carlson); Pooh-Poohing Copyright Law’s “Inalienable” Termination Rights, 57 Journal of the Copyright Society 799 (2010) (with D. Nimmer); Judicial Resistance to Copyright Law’s Inalienable Right to Terminate Transfers, 33 Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts 227 (2010) (with D. Nimmer); Indirect Copyright Liability and Technological Change, 32 Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts 375 (2009); Intellectual Property and the Law of Land, Regulation (2008); Intellectual Property and the Property Rights Movement, Regulation (2007); Knowledge Access and Preservation Policy in the Digital Age, Houston Law Review (2007); Legal Realism in Action: Indirect Copyright Liability’s Continuing Tort Framework and Sony‘s de facto Demise, 55 UCLA L. Rev. 14334 (2007) (with D. Nimmer); The Property Rights Movement’s Embrace of Intellectual Property: True Love or Doomed Relationship?, 34 Ecology Law Quarterly 713 (2007); Unwinding Sony, 95 California Law Review 941 (2007) (with D. Nimmer); Bankruptcy Treatment of Intellectual Property Assets; An Economic Analysis, 22 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 733 (2007); Knowledge Access and Preservation Policy in the Digital Age, 44 Houston Law Review 1013 (2007); A Method for Reforming the Patent System, 13 Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review 487 (2007); Intellectual Property Law, in Handbook of Law and Economics, edited by A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell (2007) (with S. Scotchmer).