Mark McKenna

Professor Mark P. McKenna teaches and writes in the areas of intellectual property and privacy law. Though his core area of expertise is trademark law, where he is widely recognized as a leading expert, Professor McKenna has written broadly on nearly every area of intellectual property, including utility patent, design patent, copyright, and the right of publicity. He has also written more generally on innovation and technology policy. Much of his most recent work has focused on the intersection of intellectual property rights regimes and the intersection of IP rights with adjacent rights.

Professor McKenna is Faculty Co-Director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy, a partnership between the UCLA School of Law and UCLA Samueli School of Engineering that examines the benefits and risks presented by technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, cybersecurity and digital media and communications. He was previously Faculty Co-Director of the Ziffren Institute for Entertainment, Media, Technology & Sports Law, with which he remains actively involved as an affiliated faculty member.

Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, Professor McKenna was the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at the Notre Dame Law School. He was the founding Director of the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, a university-wide, multi-disciplinary research center focused on the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies. Professor McKenna has also been a member of the faculty at Saint Louis University School of Law, and a visiting faculty member at Stanford Law School, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, the Turin University-WIPO Master of Laws in Intellectual Property Program, and the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center at the Max Planck Institute.

Professor McKenna is a co-founder of and of counsel to Lex Lumina PLLC, a boutique intellectual property and technology law firm. Prior to entering academia, he practiced full time with an intellectual property firm in Chicago, where he primarily litigated trademark and copyright cases.