Peter S. Menell is the Koret Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. After earning his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics, Professor Menell clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second 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 now 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 fifty 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. In 2918, the California Lawyers Association recognized Professor Menell's contributions to the intellectual property field with its IP Vanguard Award. 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.