Global Professor of Intellectual Property Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law

Graeme B. Dinwoodie is a prolific intellectual property scholar of international renown. From 2009 to 2018, he was a professor of intellectual property and information technology law at the University of Oxford, where he was also director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre and a Professorial Fellow of St. Peter’s College. Immediately prior to taking up the IP chair at Oxford, Dinwoodie was a professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law for several years. During that time, Dinwoodie led Chicago-Kent’s program in intellectual property law, helping to build the program’s international reputation. From 2005 to 2009, he also held a chair in intellectual property law position at Queen Mary College, University of London.

Dinwoodie rejoined the law school faculty in 2016 as a university professor, an appointment reserved for “highly distinguished faculty who may be appointed by the President [of Illinois Institute of Technology] in recognition of their national reputations.” And in 2018, he returned full-time to Chicago-Kent upon his appointment as global professor of intellectual property law. In 2020 he was inducted into the IP Hall of Fame.

Dinwoodie is the author of many books and casebooks, including A Neofederalist Vision of TRIPS: The Resilience of the International Intellectual Property Regime (Oxford University Press 2012, with R. Dreyfuss), Trademarks and Unfair Competition: Law and Policy (sixth edition 2022, with M. Janis), Trade Dress and Design Law (2010, with M. Janis), and International Intellectual Property Law and Policy (second edition 200, with W. Hennessey, S. Perlmutter, and G. Austin). He is also the author of dozens of articles, book chapters, and other substantial works, including numerous essays and shorter works. His scholarship is widely cited by scholars in the United States and abroad. He received the 2008 Ladas Memorial Award from the International Trademark Association for his article, “Confusion Over Use: Contextualism in Trademark Law” (with M. Janis). He is considered a leading international authority in trademark law, design law, and international intellectual property law, and is regularly invited to speak at numerous conferences and institutions around the world.

Dinwoodie has held a number of visiting or honorary positions, including as the Yong Shook Lin Visiting Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the National University of Singapore, a global professor of law at New York University School of Law, an Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Strasbourg, the George P. Smith II Distinguished Visiting Chair at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and a visiting professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

Dinwoodie first joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2000 from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he was a three-time recipient of the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In 2001 he was named a Norman and Edna Freehling Scholar, and he was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2003. In 2008 Dinwoodie received the Pattishall Medal for Teaching Excellence in the field of trademarks and trade identity law—awarded only once every four years—from the International Trademark Association.

Dinwoodie has served as a consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organization on matters of private international law, as an adviser to the American Law Institute Project on Principles on Jurisdiction and Recognition of Judgments in Intellectual Property Matters, and as a consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge. He currently serves as an adviser on the ALI’s project on the Restatement of Copyright Law. He is a past chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Association of American Law Schools and was president of the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) from 2011 to 2013.

Prior to teaching, Dinwoodie had been an associate with Sullivan and Cromwell in New York, concentrating in the practice of intellectual property law and in commercial, corporate, and international litigation. Dinwoodie holds an LL.B. in Private Law (first class honors) from the University of Glasgow, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a J.S.D. from Columbia Law School. He was the Burton Fellow in residence at Columbia Law School for 1988–89, working in the field of intellectual property law, and a John F. Kennedy Scholar at Harvard Law School for 1987–88.