What excites you most about joining the University of California, Irvine School of Law faculty?
I’m excited to be founding a new intellectual property program at a top university in a region so technologically innovative as Southern California.

Describe your scholarship.
The recent expansion of patent law into new subject matter has allowed patents to issue on methods of speaking, methods of behaving, even methods of thinking. I am currently acting as an advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union to develop policy on challenging patents that may unconstitutionally restrict freedom of speech or other civil liberties.

What inspired you to go to law school?
In 1987, a Florida jury announced the first criminal conviction in the United States based on DNA profiling evidence. Reading newspaper accounts of the trial, I realized that lawyers and judges didn’t understand the science involved, and the time was right to add a law degree to my training in molecular biology.

• Stanford Law School, J.S.M., 1994
• Arizona State University, J.D., 1990
• Northwestern University, M.S., molecular biology and biochemistry, 1987
• Brigham Young University, B.S., microbiology, 1985

• University of Minnesota Law School, 2000-2008
• Seton Hall University
• Stanford Law School, teaching fellow, 1991-1993
• Visiting professorships at Cornell Law School, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, University of Tilburg Law Faculty, Munich Intellectual Property Law Center at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, Wettbewerbs und Steuerrecht, George Mason University School of Law, Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University, Ohio State University Programme at Oxford, and Program for Management in the Network Economy at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Piacenza, Italy

• Intellectual property (especially cyberlaw and biotechnology)

• Author of numerous papers on the legal and societal impact of new technologies, including articles on scientific misconduct, regulation of biotechnology and intellectual property implications of global computer networks.

• Professor Burk is an internationally prominent authority on intellectual property law. He was closely involved in the development of the joint degree program in law, health and life sciences at the University of Minnesota.

• Order of the Coif
• Service as legal adviser to a variety of private, governmental and intergovernmental organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union Committee on Patent Policy, the OECD Committee on Consumer Protection, and the United States State Department Working Group on Intellectual Property, Interoperability and Standards.