Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law

Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, administrative law, and health policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools.  Rai's research on IP law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH and the Kauffman Foundation. She has published over 50 articles, essays, and book chapters on IP law, administrative law, and health policy.  Her publications have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Legal Studies, Nature Biotechnology, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011), the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation, and the co-author of a casebook on law and the mental health system.

From 2009-2010, Rai served as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As External Affairs Administrator, Rai led policy analysis of the patent reform legislation that ultimately became the America Invents Act and worked to establish the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO.  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 regularly testifies before Congress and relevant administrative bodies on IP law and policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on IP policy issues raised by the research that they fund. Recently, her work has focused on advising the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Human Genome Research Institute. Rai is currently co-chair of the IP Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the ABA.  She also serves as a member of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on "Understanding the Global Public Health Implications of Substandard, Falsified, and Counterfeit Medical Products." 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.