Hugh C. Hansen Image

Hugh C. Hansen

Professor of Law; Director, Hansen Intellectual Property Law Institute, Fordham University School of Law (Ret.)

Retired

Prof. Hansen is a just retired Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where he taught courses in IP Law, Copyright Law, Trademark Law and EU and International Intellectual Property Law. He also taught U.S. Constitutional Law for over 25 years. He is the founder and director of both the Fordham Intellectual Property Law Institute and the Fordham Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law and Policy, now in its 22nd year.

Managing Intellectual Property magazine named him in 2010 and again in 2013 as one of the 50 most influential people in IP in the world. In doing so it characterized him as an “IP provocateur” and “the ringmaster who pulls together one of the IP world’s must-attend events.” In 2007, Chief Judge Paul Michel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit presented Prof. Hansen with an award for “his contribution to the legal community’s understanding of international intellectual property law.”

After graduation from Georgetown Law School, where he was a member of the Law Journal, Prof. Hansen clerked for Judge Inzer B. Wyatt in the Southern District of New York and then Judge Murray I. Gurfein in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was also a litigation associate with Dewey Ballantine and an Assistant United States Attorney in the criminal division of the Southern District of New York.

Since joining the Law School faculty, Prof. Hansen has served numerous times as a consultant or expert witness in intellectual property litigations in U.S., Europe. He has also been the lead counsel in copyright and trademark actions and before DG Competition of the European Commission. He has also been a visiting professor at Melbourne University and a visiting professorial fellow at Queen Mary Research Institute in London.

Prof. Hansen speaks frequently on U.S. and international intellectual property law in the United States, Europe and Asia. Under the auspices of the Melbourne University’s Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, Prof. Hansen gave a series of addresses on intellectual property law at universities in Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney. Similarly, on a speaking tour in Japan, he addressed U.S. and international intellectual property law issues in academic, governmental and think-tank institutions in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka and Nagoya.

Recent Articles by Hugh C. Hansen

Mistreatment of Judge Pauline Newman, Hon. William C. Conner Inn 16th Annual Reception and Dinner, and Some Thoughts

First, my advice is that everyone should go to this upcoming William C. Conner Inn Annual Dinner and, for that matter, all the Inn’s annual dinners. I have enjoyed them on many levels. One of those is that you get to see and meet people you ordinarily would not, including judges, even if you often see judges. But this one on January 24 is special, because it has a background we hopefully won’t see again. When I received the Dinner announcement, I was shocked that the primary honoree is Chief Judge Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Why? Because of the way she has misled the public about her mistreatment of Judge Pauline Newman. The Inn states that the “Mission of the Hon. William C. Conner Inn is to promote excellence in professionalism, ethics (and) civility.” This is truly admirable, but one which must have been lost, overlooked, or ignored this year.