Mark Spolyar, Adjunct Professor

Adjunct Professor Mark Spolyar is an intellectual property attorney, specializing in intellectual property matters including complex technology licensing and transactions, strategic patent matters, and litigation-related counseling. He is managing partner of Almanac IP Advisors LLP, a boutique IP firm in San Francisco.  Previously, he was the VP of IP Strategy & Transactions at Pendrell Corporation, a publicly traded company focusing on the monetization of IP assets.  Prior to Pendrell, Mr. Spolyar was a partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., residing in the firm’s Palo Alto office. Prior to Baker Botts, he was the principal and founder of a technology law practice that serviced clients ranging from independent inventors and venture-funded start-ups to major Fortune 500 companies. Mark gained substantial technology and patent-related experience as a law clerk to The Honorable Ronald M. Whyte of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a Federal Court Judge nationally-known and acknowledged for his contributions to patent law. As Judge Whyte's law clerk, Mark was involved in several high profile and technologically-complex intellectual property cases. He extended his clerkship with Judge Whyte to assist with the Sun v. Microsoft case, a high profile licensing dispute concerning Microsoft's use of Sun's Java technology, which he handled from inception to settlement of the litigation. Mark's litigation-related experience includes an appointment as a Patent Law Expert assisting a Federal Court Judge in a complex, multi-patent litigation, Verizon California, Inc. v. Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., Case No. 01-CV0-09871 RGK.

Professor Spolyar is a member of the State Bar of California, and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to his legal career, Mark was a biomedical engineer at Alza Corporation in Palo Alto, California. He received his law degree with honors from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering with honors from Duke University.