Peter K. Yu, the inaugural holder of the Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law, serves as the director of the Intellectual Property Law Center. A leading expert in international intellectual property and communications law, Professor Yu is the author or editor of five books and more than 100 law review articles and book chapters. His recent publications include
Global Issues in Intellectual Property Law (Thomson West 2010) and a four-volume reference book set entitled
Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Issues and Practices in the Digital Age (Praeger Publishers 2007).
He is the general editor of
The WIPO Journal (Sweet & Maxwell in association with the World Intellectual Property Organization) and sits on the editorial boards of the
Journal of Copyright Society of the U.S.A. and the
Journal of World Intellectual Property. He has been in charge of media law projects funded by USAID, IREX and the European Commission.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Professor Yu has served as Wenlan Scholar Chair Professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, China and a visiting professor at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, Washington & Lee University School of Law, and CEIPI at the University of Strasbourg. He has spoken at events organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Chinese, EU and U.S. governments, as well as leading research institutions from around the world.
He speaks and writes in Chinese and English, and his lectures and presentations have spanned more than 25 countries on six continents. He is a frequent commentator in the national and international media. His publications have been translated into Arabic, French, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese. They are available on his
website.
Before joining Drake University, Professor Yu taught at Michigan State University College of Law and founded its nationally-ranked intellectual property and communications law program. He was also a member of the core faculty of the Asian Studies Center and held courtesy appointments in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University. In 2007, he received both the Student Bar Association’s Distinguished Faculty Award and the university-wide MSU Teacher-Scholar Award.
He received his J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, where he taught immediately after graduating from law school and served as the first executive director of its nationally-renowned intellectual property law program. He was also a research associate of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford. He holds a B.A. in English and political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
His profile in
The Des Moines Register is available
online.
Read more about Professor Yu in the news
here.
Full-time Faculty
Adjunct Faculty
Jeffrey D. Harty is the managing partner of
McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC. He began his practice in patent prosecution, trademark registration and copyrights, but now focuses much of his efforts on intellectual property litigation. Before becoming a patent attorney, Harty worked as a computer programmer with Andersen Consulting. He received his J.D. with high distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering with high distinction from Iowa State University.
Donna E. Johns is In-house Counsel for
Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc. She began her legal career in private practice in Houston, Texas, almost 20 years ago. Over the past decade, she has developed a special emphasis on intellectual property law. During 2008-2009, she was the president of the Iowa Intellectual Property Law Association. She holds her J.D. from South Texas College of Law, where she was inducted into the Order of Lytae and became a member of the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. She received her B.S. from Iowa State University.
Edmund J. Sease is a name partner of
McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC. With more than 35 years of experience as a patent attorney, trademark attorney, intellectual property litigator, he successfully argued J.E.M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. before the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining his law firm in 1973, he worked for seven years in the patent department of Proctor & Gamble. A long-time adjunct professor at Drake University Law School, he received his J.D. Order of the Coif and a B.A. in Chemistry from Drake University.
