Colleen Chien

Colleen Chien is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. Her areas of specialty include patents, empirical studies of intellectual property, international intellectual property, international trade, and technology and social justice. Professor Chien is nationally known for her research and publications on domestic and international patent law and policy issues.

From 2013-2015 Professor Chien served in the Obama White House as the Senior Advisor on Intellectual Property and Innovation, working on a broad range of patent, copyright, technology transfer, open innovation, and other issues. In November 2020, she was named to President-Elect Biden’s Transition Team as a member of the review committee for the Department of Commerce, which includes oversight of The United States Patent and Trademark Office. Additionally, she has testified on multiple occasions before Congress, the DOJ, the FTC, and the US Patent and Trademark Office on patent issues.

Professor Chien’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NPR’s Marketplace, and numerous other venues, and she is among the top 20-cited intellectual property and cyberlaw scholars in the U.S. Prior to entering academia, Professor Chien did stints as an investigative journalist, strategy consultant, and practicing lawyer (as an associate, then special counsel at Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco).

In 2019, Professor Chien was named a National Law Journal Law and Technology Trailblazer; in 2017, she was awarded the Young Scholar Medal by The American Law Institute, the Intellectual Property Vanguard Award, and was named one of the Tech Women Leaders in Law. Additionally, in 2013, she was named the inaugural Eric Yamamoto Emerging Scholar, one of the 50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property, and one of Silicon Valley’s “Women of Influence.”