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Hon. Kathleen O’Malley
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (ret.)
Kate O’Malley LLC
Hon. Kathleen M. O’Malley (Ret.) was a federal judge for more than 27 years. She was appointed by President Barack Obama for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and served as a United States Circuit Judge on that court from 2010 until her retirement from the bench in March 2022. Before that, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and served for 16 years between 1994 and 2010. Judge O’Malley was the first former District Court Judge appointed to the Federal Circuit.
At the Federal Circuit, she presided over appellate matters within the court’s jurisdiction, including those involving patents, trademarks, international trade, government contracts, tax, federal takings cases, monetary claims against the United States government, federal personnel merit systems protection board appeals, veterans’ benefits, public safety officers’ benefits claims, and government whistle-blower claims. She authored over 500 written opinions. She also sat by designation on the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.
At the Northern District of Ohio, shepresided over approximately 4,000 civil cases and 800 criminal cases. Specially, she presided over 45 civil trials and 60 criminal trials. She was the first judge in the Northern District of Ohio to preside over a Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”) case and one of only a few judges in the country to preside over three MDLs simultaneously.
Kate served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit until her retirement in March 2022. Prior to becoming a Judge, Judge O’Malley served as First Assistant and Chief of Staff to then-Ohio Attorney General Lee Fischer, supervising the office’s 1,100 employees, and, before that, as the Chief Counsel to the Attorney General, supervising the work of over 350 attorneys and litigating major matters on behalf of the State of Ohio and its elected officials. Before her public service, Judge O’Malley litigated complex business cases at large law firms in Ohio.
In addition to her patent expertise, Kate has substantial experience with other IP issues—copyright, trademark, trade secret, and the intersection of IP and antitrust—and with other areas of federal law, including securities fraud, tax matters, multi-district litigation and white collar criminal prosecutions.
Kate has received numerous awards over her career. For her contributions to the development of IP law alone, she has received accolades including the Sedona Conference “Lifetime Achievement Award,” the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association Jefferson Medal, the New York Intellectual Property Law Association “Outstanding Public Service Award,” the Intellectual Property Owners Association “Distinguished IP Professional Award” and the Eagle Forum Phyllis Schlafly “IP Champion Award.” She was also inducted into the IAM IP Hall of Fame by Intellectual Asset Management and was named a lifetime honorary member of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel. Additionally, the Kathleen M. O’Malley Inn of Court was recently chartered in Cleveland, Ohio, as a tribute to Kate’s service.
Kate regularly lectures on various IP topics, including the importance of IP to innovation and the importance of innovation to the economy, and has trained judges, lawyers and stakeholders on the U.S. IP system in over a dozen countries around the world. She was the only U.S. representative on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Judicial Advisory Council for the first five years of its existence and has been involved in many WIPO sponsored projects and programs. Kate is a senior adviser for the Renewing American Innovation Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and serves on the IPO Education Foundation Board of Directors. She is also a member of the board of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) and the board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Diversity in IP (FADIPL).
Kate has been involved in numerous projects relating to the intersection of science and the law.
At the invitation of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Federal Judicial Center, she served on the Committee on the Development of the Third Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. She also recently co-chaired a planning committee for a workshop titled, “Emerging Areas of Science, Engineering, and Medicine for the Courts,” that explored legal questions relating to climate change, the ethical and IP implications of AI, implicit bias, computer science and engineering, among other cutting-edge issues.
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