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Dean A. Pelletier
Founder
Pelletier Law, LLC
Dean A. Pelletier is the founder of Pelletier Law, LLC, an intellectual property law firm in Chicago, IL. ([email protected]; (773) 472-7777 (office); (773) 960-1096 (mobile))
Prior to founding Pelletier Law, Dean was a managing director at an intellectual capital merchant banc and a board member/shareholder at another IP law firm in Chicago.
Dean has been working with IP for more than 25 years. His practice focuses on leveraging patents and trade secrets.
He is a member of the Illinois Bar and the Northern District of Illinois Trial Bar, a registered U.S. patent attorney and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US).
He has litigated and tried cases in U.S district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and state courts and has argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Dean represented Amsted Industries, the prevailing complainant, in the groundbreaking trade secret case, TianRui v. ITC, 661 F.3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2011). He litigated one of the first Defend Trade Secrets Act cases and successfully litigated and tried a patent infringement case that resulted in an $80 million award.
Dean has been a keynote IP speaker, presenter and panelist at multiple professional and legal trade shows, conferences and meetings. He has been a guest IP lecturer at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management and Illinois Institute of Technology, Stuart School of Business.
Dean is a member of The Sedona Conference, Working Group 12 on Trade Secrets (WG12), and is also a WG12 Steering Committee Member.
He has written many IP law articles and posts, including:
SCOTUS Patent Scorecard and SCOTUS Patent Scorecard Updates
AI Cannot Be An Inventor, But What About The Other Side Of The Coin?
16 Words To Potentially Boost The Value Of Your Trade Secret Portfolio
Knicks, Raptors and Trade Secrets: More Like This to Come?
9 Observations About Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Trade Secrets
Protecting AI-Generated Inventions as Trade Secrets Requires Protecting the Generative AI as Well
Dean received his J.D. from Washington University School of Law (St. Louis, MO) and his B.S. in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL).
Recent Articles by Dean A. Pelletier
Editor’s Note: Dean A. Pelletier of Pelletier Law, LLC co-authored this article with Erik Weibust.
Legal, technology, business, and academic professionals currently are debating whether an invention autonomously generated by artificial intelligence (AI) should be patentable in the United States and elsewhere. Some proponents of patentability argue that if AI, by itself, is not recognized as an inventor, then AI owners will lack protection for AI-generated inventions and AI innovation, commercialization, and investment (collectively, AI innovation) will be inhibited as a result. Some of those proponents further argue that, without patent protection as an option, AI owners increasingly will opt for trade secret protection, which by design reduces public disclosure of corresponding inventions and, as such, still will inhibit AI innovation. Some opponents of patentability, on the other hand, argue that patenting AI-generated inventions will promote those inventions and discourage human-generated inventions, thereby reducing human innovation and ultimately competition, because patent ownership will become concentrated, or more concentrated, in fewer entities—in particular, large, well-funded entities.
