Colleen V. Chien is an American attorney and academic working as a law professor at
Santa Clara University School of Law
The Santa Clara University School of Law (Santa Clara Law) is the law school of Santa Clara University, a Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States, in the Silicon Valley region. The School of Law was founded in 1911. The Jesuit ...
, where she teaches Patent Law, International Intellectual Property and Remedies.
Early life, education, and early career
Chien was born in
Hartford, Connecticut, to immigrant parents from
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...
. She earned a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from
Stanford University, followed by a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...
from the
UC Berkeley School of Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
.
Before becoming a professor, she worked as an attorney at the Silicon Valley law firm
Fenwick & West
Fenwick & West LLP is a law firm of nearly 430 attorneys with offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Santa Monica, Washington, DC and Shanghai. The firm's practice focuses on technology companies, life sciences com ...
and as an investigative journalist with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism as a Fulbright Scholar.
Career
From 2013 to 2015, she served as a senior advisor for intellectual property and innovation to
Todd Park, the U.S. chief technology officer, in the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C., NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. preside ...
's
Office of Science and Technology Policy
An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific d ...
(OSTP). In that role, her projects included transferring green technology out of the federal government, using technology to improve education outcomes, making more federal government data available, open education resources, and technology cooperation with China.
Chien is best known for her patent scholarship, especially her work on
patent “trolls” or patent assertion entities (PAEs). She coined the term PAE in a 2010 law review article, and many lawmakers subsequently adopted the term. She has published empirical studies on how patent litigation impacts startups and venture capitalists, and she has been a vocal proponent of reforming the patent system.
Chien founded the Paper Prisons initiative, which draws attention to the tens of millions of Americans unable to access employment, housing, voting, and resentencing opportunities available under the law, due to their past involvement with the criminal justice system. This project is based on her 2020 ''Michigan Law Review'' paper, America's Paper Prisons: The Second Chance Gap.
Chien has also worked on patent quality issues, including testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In 2020, Chien was named a volunteer member of the
Joe Biden presidential transition
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020 and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week o ...
Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the
Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bus ...
.
Other activism projects she has been involved with include ActLocal and Wall of Us.
Awards
In 2017, the
American Law Institute
The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs ...
awarded her the "Young Scholar Medal," given every-other-year to "one or two outstanding early-career law professors." ALI said:
Other recognition she has received:
* In 2017, the California State Bar's IP Section designated her as an "IP Vanguard" (in the academic category).
* In 2013, ''
Managing Intellectual Property
''Managing Intellectual Property'' (also known as Managing IP or MIP) is a monthly magazine published in English and specializes in intellectual property.Managing Intellectual Property website''About us'' Consulted on June 27, 2018 Jeremy Phill ...
'' magazine named her one of the "Top 50 IP Thought Leaders in the World" and said that her work has "led the debate in the US
n patent trolls
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
and been behind many of the recent proposals for reform."
* In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural
Eric Yamamoto Emerging Scholar Award by the Board of the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty (CAPALF)
* In 2013, she was named a Silicon Valley “Woman of Influence” by the ''Silicon Valley Business Journal'',
Women of Influence: Colleen Chien, Santa Clara University
Silicon Valley Business Journal, April 5, 2013. which called her "one of the most quotable and frequently consulted commentators on the patent system" and said she is "a leader in the national community of intellectual property scholars."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chien, Colleen
Living people
American legal scholars
Santa Clara University School of Law faculty
American people of Taiwanese descent
American women lawyers
American lawyers
1973 births
UC Berkeley School of Law alumni
Stanford University alumni
American women academics
21st-century American women