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This award is for 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 through extraordinary contributions to, among other things, teaching, scholarship, innovation, legislation, advocacy, bar or other association activities, or the judiciary.

The award is open to the widest range of individuals and there is no requirement to be a lawyer or ABA member. Self-nominations are welcome.

Nominations

Nominations for the 2025 Award were open Monday, August 26, 2024 through Monday, October 7, 2024. Please check back for more information soon.

About Mark T. Banner

The late Mark Banner was chair of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law from 2002 to 2003. He sought, demanded, and attained the very best from himself and everyone. These characteristics 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.

Mark was widely recognized not only as one of the best IP trial lawyers in the United States, but also as one of the country’s best trial lawyers, period. His 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 was reasonable and cogent as well as easily understood. Mark Banner’s extraordinary gift, in addition to his trial expertise, was in teaching, where he always varied the performance to conform to a student’s style. He often said that teaching was his “labor of love.”

Past Award Recipients 

The ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law honors these stars of intellectual property law who have risen to the top of the profession.

2024 Award Recipient

Mark A. Lemley, William H. Neukom Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology

2023 Award Recipient

Ralph Oman, Former U.S. Register of Copyrights Pravel Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law, George Washington Law School, Retired

2022 Award Recipients

William F. Lee, Partner, WilmerHale

2021 Award Recipients

Hon. James D. Smith, Chief IP Counsel at Ecolab Inc., and former first Chief Judge of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Karyn A. Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel of the Motion Picture Association, and former Register of Copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office

Philip G. Hampton, II, Senior Partner and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer in the D.C. office of Polsinelli PC. and former Assistant Commissioner for Trademarks at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

2019 Award Recipient

Robert A. Armitage, Consultant on intellectual property strategy and policy matters and member of the board of directors for the American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation. 

2018 Award Recipients

Simon Tam, Musician, Author, Entrepreneur, and Activist

John Connell, Partner, Archer & Greiner P.C.

Ron Coleman, Partner, Archer & Greiner P.C.

Joel G. MacMull, Associate, Archer & Greiner P.C.

2017 Award Recipients

Hon. Lucy H. Koh, U. S. District Court, Northern District of California

Don W. Martens, Founding Partner, Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear

Dr. Kate Darling, MIT Media Lab Research Specialist, Harvard Berkman Center Fellow, Robot Ethics Expert

2015 Award Recipients

Jane C. Ginsburg, Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, Columbia University Law School.

Donald R. Dunner, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, L.L.P

Tony Dutra, Legal Editor, Bloomberg BNA's Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal

2014 Award Recipients

Hayden Gregory, Legislative Consultant, ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law

Hon. Paul R. Michel, Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Kenneth D. Crews, Lawyer, Professor, and International Copyright Consultant

2013 Award Recipients

Hon. Pauline Newman, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Christina Bohannan, Professor, University of Iowa College of Law

2012 Award Recipients

Hon. James F. Holderman, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

2011 Award Recipients

Marybeth Peters, Former Register of Copyrights

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