Christopher Cotropia

Contact Information

Bey & Cotropia PLLC
213 Bayly Court
Richmond, VA  23229
804-404-2367
chris@beycotropia.com

Biography

Chris Cotropia is an expert in patent law and other areas of intellectual property law.  He provides consulting and expert services on numerous intellectual property issues.  He has also testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Federal Trade Commission, and the United States International Trade Commission on patent law issues.

He is the David Weaver Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, where he is also a member of the School’s Center for Law and Technology.  He teaches patent law, intellectual property law, professional responsibility, and property. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters in the areas of patent law and intellectual property law.

Chris clerked for the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  He also practiced at the Washington, DC office of Fish & Richardson PC. Before joining the faculty at the George Washington University Law School, Chris was the Dennis I. Belcher Professor of Law at University of Richmond School of Law and the C.J. Morrow Research Associate Professor of Law at Tulane University School of Law.

Education

  • J.D., University of Texas School of Law, Order of the Coif, Articles Editor, Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal
  • Queen Mary & Westfield College – Centre for Commercial Legal Studies, Coursework in International and Comparative Intellectual Property Law
  • B.S., Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University, with Honors and Distinction, Member, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu

Bar Admissions

  • California
  • District of Columbia
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
  • U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
  • U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
  • Virginia

Memberships

  • American Association of Law Schools

Amicus Briefs

  • Brief of Demand Progress as Interested Non-Party, U.S. v. Kim Dotcom, No. 1:12-cr-00003-LO (E.D. Va. June 2012) (Co-Author and Counsel of Record).
  • Brief of Professor Christopher A. Cotropia as Amicus Curiae in Support of Eli Lilly’s Answers to the En Banc Questions, Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., No. 2008-1248 (Fed. Cir. en banc Nov. 18, 2009) (Author and Counsel of Record) (cited in resulting opinion).
  • Brief of Business and Law Professors as Amicus Curiae in Support of the Respondent, KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., No. 04-1350 (U.S. Oct. 16, 2006) (Co-Author and Counsel of Record).
  • Brief of Professors John R. Allison, et. al. as Amicus Curiae in Support of the Respondents, MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., No. 05-608 (U.S. July 26, 2006) (Co-Author).

Recent Publications (available at http://ssrn.com/author=345316)

  • Patents Used in Patent Office Rejections as Indicators of Value, 22 J. Empirical L. Stud. 76 (2025) (with David Schwartz).

  • The SCALES Project: Making Federal Court Records Free, 119 Nw. U. L. Rev. 23 (2024) (with David Schwartz et al.).

  • Boosting Patent Quality and Equity with Access to AI and Automation, Regulation (2024) (with Colleen Chien).
  • Nonobviousness and Unmotivated, Yet Minor, Inventions, 21 Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. 281 (2024).
  • Patents as Signal of Quality in Crowdfunding, 2021 U. Ill. L. Rev. 193 (2021).
  • Patent Law: An Open-Access Casebook (2021) (co-author).
  • Crowdfunding and Intellectual Property Protection, in The EU Crowdfunding Regulation (Oxford University Press) (2021).
  • The Hidden Value of Abandoned Applications to the Patent System, 61 B.C. L. Rev. 2809 (2020) (with David Schwartz).
  • Convergence and Conflation in Online Copyright, 105 Iowa L. Rev. 1027 (2019) (with Jim Gibson).

Recent Presentations

  • Examining the Value of Small Entity Patents, at International Conference on Emerging Issues in IP Law, Paris-Lodron University Salzburg School of Law, Salzburg, Austria, October 2024.
  • Examining the Value of Small Entity Patents, University of Denver School of Law, September 2024.
  • Patents Used in Patent Office Rejections as Indicators of Value at the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, University of Chicago Law School, October 2023.
  • Data and Civil Law at Data Justice: How Innovative Data is Transforming the Law Symposium, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, October 2023.
  • Commentator, Copyright Small Claims Court at the Workshop on Empirical Methods in Intellectual Property, Duke Law School, July 2023.
  • Faster, Cheaper, and Better Patenting at Patcon 11, Northwestern University School of Law, April 2023.