Michael Elmer Esq.

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP
Elmer, Michael C.

Michael C. Elmer, Senior Counsel at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, has more than 40 years of experience in virtually every aspect of intellectual property law, including ex parte, inter partes, and litigated IP matters. For most of his career, Mr. Elmer has litigated patent, trademark, trade secret, trade dress, copyright, and related antitrust matters.

Since becoming Senior Counsel, Mr. Elmer has focused his litigation work on the coordination of the firm's Global IP Litigation Project. The centerpiece of the project is a database containing win-rate statistics on international patent litigation provided by a network of participating international firms from 30 countries. The project's purpose is to assist clients in resolving international patent disputes and implementing global offensive and defensive strategic plans, including forum shopping.

Mr. Elmer's broad litigation experience includes serving as lead or co-counsel in cases in seven U.S. Courts of Appeals, including the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; 35 U.S. district courts; the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC); the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Board of Appeals; and numerous state courts. Mr. Elmer has also managed, arbitrated, and negotiated complex international IP disputes, and supervised licensing agreements and settlements involving all aspects of IP, technical data rights, and global distribution agreements before arbitration tribunals such as the American Arbitration Association, and Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services Inc.

Mr. Elmer has lectured extensively both in the U.S. and abroad on global patent litigation including the resolution and evaluation of international patent disputes.

Mr. Elmer received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his J.D. from Marquette University Law School.

He is the co-author of the Bloomberg BNA treatise Global Patent Litigation: How and Where to Win.