Suffolk Law Intellectual Property Center

Drawing on Suffolk Law’s longstanding scholarly and alumni strength in IP, the Suffolk Law IP Center advances knowledge and skills through conferences, practical training, scholarship prizes, and online programming for lawyers and other legal professionals.

A Hub for Intellectual Property & Innovation

The Suffolk Law IP Center is a place for the IP community to gather, to learn, and to share big ideas. Through its programming and events, the IP Center strives to equip its students, faculty, alumni, and members of the IP community with the skills and knowledge-base that they need to succeed in a constantly changing IP environment.

The Center’s annual IP & Innovation Conference brings together a cross-section of the intellectual property community, including IP scholars, law firm practitioners, in-house counsel, and policy makers.

The Fifth Annual IP & Innovation Conference will take place in at Suffolk Law School on Thursday, October 12, 2023 and Friday, October 13, 2023. This event will explore what drives innovation and how the law impacts discoveries, creativity, and inventions from diverse perspectives in a variety of sectors. Thursday is a full-day program with leading IP scholars and practitioners discussing cutting edge developments and practical challenges across a broad range of intellectual property topics and trends. Friday is a half-day, invite-only program for IP scholars to present a work-in-progress in any stage of development—anything from a full paper to an abstract to even the beginning of an idea.

Additional details and registration information for the Fifth Annual IP & Innovation Conference is coming soon. Learn more about the event here.

IP Programs at Suffolk Law

As one of the largest and most developed of its kind in the country, Suffolk Law’s IP concentration is regularly listed among the top 30% of IP programs in the country by US News & World Report and is comprised of a wealth of courses to address the richness of this diverse field of practice.

  • Our five resident, tenure-track faculty write and teach in a wide range of IP subject matter
  • In addition to our IP concentration and patent law specialization, we offer a cutting-edge IP and Entrepreneurship Clinic and six experiential classes to produce practice-ready students
  • Recently, our clinic students have won complex IP cases against Monster Energy Drink and Nautica—with major media coverage of their victories
  • Our exceptional graduates have gone on to work in many areas such as in the largest IP practices in Massachusetts law firms, in-house at tech giants like Google, Dell, and IBM, and at major biotech/pharma companies including Pfizer, Moderna, and Novartis

Suffolk’s Journal of High Technology Law, a student-edited journal published twice a year, offers cutting-edge exploration at the intersection of technology and the law. Recent posts on the JHTL blog examined the role of IP in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and esports, rising calls for IP protections in the cannabis industry, and whether AI machines can be inventors of patents.

Read articles or make a submission

What Can the IP Law Center Do For You?

For Students

With an emphasis on real world practice and experiential learning, Suffolk Law is an incredible place to start, build, and launch a successful career and life in intellectual property law. Suffolk Law School’s range of IP class offerings is among the broadest in the country.

For Intellectual Property Professionals & Community Members

Through its programming and events, the Suffolk Intellectual Property Law Center strives to equip its students, faculty, alumni and members of the IP community with the skills and knowledge base they will need to succeed in a constantly changing IP environment.

For Alumni

Suffolk Law School’s consistent pipeline of students with STEM backgrounds who combine work and IP law training has resulted in a highly qualified alumni base. Suffolk Law's 23,000+ graduates can be found in every area of legal practice and in every corner of the world and they work in private practice, corporations, public interest organizations, the military and all branches of government.

Meet Our Faculty

Teaching and scholarship go hand in hand at Suffolk Law. Our faculty are not only mentors and advisors to their students—they are also thought leaders in their disciplines.

Suffolk Law professors are top legal scholars and practitioners with deep experience in leading international law firms, prominent small firms, large corporate legal departments, district attorney, and public defender offices, government agencies, and public interest and public service organizations.

Related Events

Currently, there are no upcoming events. Please check back again soon.