Arti K. Rai
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law
Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law at Duke Law School and member, Duke Institute for Genome Science and Policy, is an authority in patent law, administrative law, and innovation policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of San Diego law schools.
Rai's academic research on innovation policy in areas such as synthetic biology, green technology, drug development, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and Chatham House. She has published widely in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Nature Biotechnology, PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and has also co-authored a casebook on law and the mental health system.
From 2009-2010, Rai took a leave of absence from Duke Law School to serve as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO and as an expert advisor to the Department of Commerce’s Office of General Counsel. Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Rai has served as a peer reviewer for Science, Research Policy, the Journal of Legal Studies, various National Academy of Sciences reports on intellectual property, and various NIH study sections. She has also testified before Congress on innovation policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on policy issues (including intellectual property policy issues) raised by the research that they fund. Recently, her work has focused on advising the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Rai is currently the chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association. She is also a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In 2011, Rai won the World Technology Network Award for Law.
Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Rai's moot court team at Harvard Law School won Best Brief and Team honors at the school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition.
