Patent Law

USNews ranking of Intellectual Property focused law schools was released in late April. The ranking is created by polling professors who teach at least one IP course. The professors then list up to fifteen programs with good IP programs. Those "votes" are then used to create a ranking. Of course, most IP professors are not patent professors. All of the programs on the list have excellent IP faculty. However, only a few have a patent focus.

The list:

1 Stanford University

2 University of California--Berkeley

3 George Washington University

4 Columbia University; Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago-Kent) (tie)

6 Franklin Pierce Law Center

7 University of Houston

8 Santa Clara University; Yeshiva University (Cardozo) (tie)

10 Duke University

Link

I have redone my list of the top thirty law school patent programs based solely on the number of Patently-O visits received from the associated university in the past year. There are many issues with this study. Some schools may not use their name in their IP address ? making them lose their ranking. This appears to be true of Franklin Pierce Law Center. Schools where students (and professors) primarily study away from campus building may also rank relatively lower.  Many of these hits come from the Technology Transfer office rather than the law school.