George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

C-IP2’s Professor Seán O’Connor Returns to Faculty

After successfully steering Scalia Law’s Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2) through a rebranding and expansion that resulted in a Top 20 ranking for the Law School’s IP Program, Professor Seán O’Connor is returning to full time research and teaching. O’Connor will continue on as C-IP2’s Faculty Advisor, while Managing Director Joshua Kresh will assume the role of Interim Executive Director.

“I am gratified to have built on the successes of C-IP2’s predecessor in providing a unique place in the academy for heterodox IP views for the past 4 years, but I am thrilled to return to my primary passions of teaching and research. Those law review articles won’t write themselves,” says O’Connor.

“We appreciate Professor O’Connor’s leadership of the C-IP2 through robust strategy, COVID, and to a Top 20 US News & World Report ranking,” said Scalia Law Dean Ken Randall. “We look forward to his return to valuable scholarship and teaching.”

C-IP2 was founded by Professors Adam Mossoff and Mark Schultz in 2012 as the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) to offer underrepresented views on the benefits of IP in the academy. O’Connor assumed the helm in 2019 and expanded its reach to include innovation policy and launched the Innovation Law Clinic to provide pro bono business and IP legal services to disadvantaged clients in the DC metro area.

The Center’s Advisory Board includes former heads of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, U.S. Copyright Office, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, together with industry leaders from life sciences, information technology, and creative fields. Beyond its internal staff, C-IP2 has more than 40 leading academics as affiliated scholars and runs renowned conferences and fellowship programs.