This award in honor of the late Mark T. Banner will be presented to an individual or group that has made an impact on intellectual property law and/or practice. Candidates will have expressed a clear passion and enthusiasm for, and advanced the practice, profession, and/or substance of IP law and through extraordinary contributions to, among, other things, teaching, scholarship, innovation, legislation, advocacy, bar or other association activities, or to the judiciary. The award is open to the widest range of individuals and there is no requirement to be a lawyer or ABA member.

2012 Award

The award will be presented to the winner(s) by Section Chair Robert A. Armitage on Saturday, August 4, 12:00-1:30 p.m. at the Mark T. Banner Luncheon during the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.

Nominations must be received no later than April 15.


2011 Award Winners


Marybeth Peters
Former Register of Copyrights


Judge Richard Linn, United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit

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About Mark Banner...

Mark Banner, who served as Chair of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law from 2002 to 2003, sought, demanded, and attained the very best from himself and from everyone around him. The latter characteristic made him and those around him seek excellence in all they did: advocacy, work, relationships, intellectual property matters, and work for the ABA-IPL Section.


The IP community and the entire legal profession considered Mark not only one of the best IP trial lawyers in the United States, but also one of the country’s best trial lawyers, period.


Mark’s work transcended narrow principles of IP decisional law and wove in the fabric of general law to reflect the reality of his legal positions in a way that not only was easy to understand, but also was reasonable and cogent.


His gift, in addition to his trial experience, was to truly teach, varying the performance to conform to a student’s style. He often referred to his teaching as a “labor of love.”