NYU Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy Guide

Engelberg Center Overview

The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU School of Law stands as one of the world’s premier academic institutions dedicated to understanding and shaping the legal frameworks that govern innovation, technology, and creative expression. Located at Wilf Hall in NYU’s Greenwich Village campus at 139 MacDougal Street, New York, the Center provides a unique environment where legal scholars, practitioners, government officials, economists, physical scientists, engineers, historians, and industry experts come together to examine the laws and policies that best support innovation in all its forms.

Founded in 1994 and endowed by Alfred B. Engelberg of the NYU Law Class of 1965, the Center carries the legacy of one of the most influential figures in American pharmaceutical law. Engelberg’s career spanned roles as a patent examiner, patent agent, patent attorney at the Department of Justice, law firm partner, representative for the generic pharmaceutical industry, and — most notably — principal negotiator of the landmark Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, which fundamentally transformed how generic drugs enter the American market and has saved consumers billions of dollars in pharmaceutical costs.

Under the leadership of seven distinguished faculty co-directors, the Engelberg Center has established itself as the intellectual hub for some of the most consequential debates in contemporary law: How should artificial intelligence be regulated? Who owns the outputs of machine learning systems? How do we balance innovation incentives with access to knowledge? What role should antitrust law play in governing digital platforms? These questions and many more are the subject of the Center’s research, programming, publications, and policy engagement.

Mission and Research Vision

The Engelberg Center’s mission is rooted in a fundamental question: what laws and policies best support innovation? The Center approaches this question with unusual intellectual breadth, recognizing that innovation takes many forms — from pharmaceutical breakthroughs to open-source software, from artistic expression to algorithmic systems — and that the legal frameworks governing each area must be understood both on their own terms and in relation to broader innovation ecosystems.

The Center facilitates programming, publications, and interactions that refine understanding of legal and policy implications of research, and communicates those implications to stakeholders and decision-makers both nationally and internationally. This translational mission — bridging academic research and real-world policy — distinguishes the Engelberg Center from purely academic research centers. Its faculty don’t just study innovation law; they actively shape it through congressional testimony, amicus briefs, advisory roles, and direct engagement with regulators and industry leaders.

The Center’s approach is fundamentally empirical and interdisciplinary. Rather than relying solely on doctrinal legal analysis, its scholars employ economic modeling, data science, agent-based simulation, ethnographic research, and historical analysis to understand how legal rules actually affect innovation and technology deployment. This commitment to evidence-based scholarship has produced some of the most influential and widely cited research in intellectual property and technology law.

Faculty Co-Directors

Barton Beebe — Intellectual Property Law

Barton Beebe, the John M. Desmarais Professor of Intellectual Property Law, brings a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective to IP scholarship. Holding a JD from Yale Law School, a PhD in English literature from Princeton, and a BA from the University of Chicago, Beebe combines doctrinal, empirical, and cultural analysis of intellectual property law. His pioneering empirical studies of copyright fair use opinions and trademark law have fundamentally changed how scholars and practitioners understand these legal frameworks. His free textbook, Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook, is used in more than 60 law schools worldwide, exemplifying the Center’s commitment to open access education.

Rochelle Dreyfuss — Patents and Science

Rochelle Dreyfuss, the Pauline Newman Professor of Law, is a trained research chemist who brings scientific expertise to her scholarship on the intersection of patents and science, international IP law, and procedural issues in IP litigation. After clerking for Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the Second Circuit and Chief Justice Warren Burger at the Supreme Court, she has served as Reporter for the American Law Institute’s project on IP principles and consultant to the Federal Courts Study Committee, Presidential Commission on Catastrophic Nuclear Accidents, and the FTC. Her work on international intellectual property and investor-state dispute settlement has shaped global IP governance debates.

Jeanne Fromer — Copyright and Trademark

Jeanne Fromer, the Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Intellectual Property Law, combines an undergraduate degree in computer science from Barnard, a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT (with AI research), and a JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. After clerking for Justice David Souter at the Supreme Court, she has become one of the most prolific scholars in copyright, trademark, trade secret, and design protection law. Her free textbook Copyright Law: Cases and Materials, co-authored with Christopher Sprigman, is used in more than 60 law schools. Her recent work on “Memes on Memes and the New Creativity” with Amy Adler explores how digital culture is transforming creative expression. For a comparison with other law-focused programs, see our guide to the GW Law JD program.

Scott Hemphill — Antitrust and Digital Platforms

Scott Hemphill, the Moses H. Grossman Professor of Law, brings credentials in both law and economics with a JD and PhD in economics from Stanford, an AB from Harvard, and an MS in economics from the London School of Economics as a Fulbright Scholar. After clerking for Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, and serving as Antitrust Bureau Chief for the New York Attorney General, Hemphill has become one of the most influential voices on antitrust in the digital age. His work with Tim Wu on “Nascent Competitors” won the AAI Jerry S. Cohn Writing Award and has been foundational to contemporary debates about platform regulation.

Jason Schultz — Technology Law and Policy Clinic

Jason Schultz, Professor of Clinical Law and Director of the Technology Law and Policy Clinic, brings both policy and litigation experience to the Center. A former Senior Advisor on Innovation and IP to US Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith at the White House, and former Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Schultz focuses on practical frameworks for IP, privacy, consumer protection, and civil rights in light of emerging technologies including machine learning, AI, and IoT. His book The End of Ownership with Aaron Perzanowski has been seminal in digital property rights discourse.

Christopher Sprigman — IP and Competition Policy

Christopher Sprigman, the Murray and Kathleen Bring Professor of Law, is the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Law: Copyright, making him one of the architects of how copyright law will be understood for decades to come. After working on the DOJ’s landmark case United States v. Microsoft as Appellate Counsel in the Antitrust Division, Sprigman has built a scholarship that bridges IP and competition policy. His book The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation challenges conventional assumptions about IP protection and creativity.

Katherine Strandburg — Patent Law and Privacy

Katherine Strandburg, the Alfred E. Engelberg Professor of Law, is a former research physicist at Argonne National Laboratory who brings deep scientific training to her scholarship on patent law, innovation policy, and information privacy. As Faculty Director of the NYU Information Law Institute and co-leader of an NSF-supported research network on Governing Knowledge Commons, Strandburg works at the intersection of technology, law, and governance. Her work on algorithmic secrecy, trade secrecy in forensic technology, and agent-based modeling as a legal theory tool represents some of the most methodologically innovative legal scholarship in the field.

Research Areas and Innovation Law Topics

The Engelberg Center’s research spans an extraordinary breadth of innovation law topics, reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of technology, creativity, and legal regulation. The Center’s core research areas include Intellectual Property Law (patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, and design protection), Antitrust and Competition Policy (digital platforms, common ownership, nascent competitors, and pharmaceutical competition), and Technology and Innovation (AI/machine learning, Internet of Things, 3D printing, open source/hardware, and digital platforms).

Privacy and data governance represent a growing focus area, encompassing information privacy, data governance frameworks, surveillance technology, contact tracing, and algorithmic secrecy. International IP research addresses TRIPS compliance, investor-state dispute settlement, transnational disputes, and global IP governance. Health and pharmaceutical innovation research — continuing the legacy of the Center’s founder — covers drug patents, generic pharmaceutical regulation, FDA reform, vaccine innovation, and COVID-19 IP issues.

The Center also maintains active research programs in art law and creativity (including art markets, NFTs, appropriation art, memes, and fashion), free speech and civil rights (First Amendment, facial recognition, predictive policing), consumer protection (standard form contracts, digital ownership), and Indigenous knowledge (traditional knowledge, data sovereignty, cultural heritage). The open access program focuses on galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM institutions), as well as open hardware development. Similar interdisciplinary approaches connecting technology and engineering education can be found at institutions like MIT’s School of Engineering.

Intellectual Property Law Research

The Engelberg Center’s IP research program is arguably the most comprehensive in American legal academia. Faculty members conduct groundbreaking empirical research on how IP law actually functions in practice, challenging long-held assumptions and providing data-driven foundations for policy reform. Barton Beebe’s empirical study of US copyright fair use opinions spanning 1978-2019 has become the definitive reference for courts and scholars analyzing fair use doctrine. His collaborative work with Jeanne Fromer on “Fake Trademark Specimens” revealed systemic problems in the trademark registration system that have prompted calls for USPTO reform.

The Center’s patent law research, led by Rochelle Dreyfuss and Katherine Strandburg, addresses fundamental questions about how patent systems should evolve in an era of rapid technological change. Dreyfuss’s work on self-executing international IP obligations and investor-state dispute settlement has illuminated the complex interactions between national IP systems and international trade law. Strandburg’s research on trade secrecy and innovation in forensic technology raises critical questions about transparency and accountability in the criminal justice system.

Copyright scholarship at the Center, shaped primarily by Jeanne Fromer and Christopher Sprigman, addresses the digital transformation of creative expression. Fromer’s work on “Machines as the New Oompa Loompas” explores how trade secrecy, cloud computing, AI, and automation are reshaping ownership of creative and productive processes. Sprigman’s role as Reporter for the ALI Restatement of Copyright ensures that the Center’s scholarship directly influences the authoritative restatement of American copyright doctrine. The Center’s commitment to open access education, embodied in free casebooks used by thousands of law students, demonstrates that its IP philosophy extends to its own practices.

Technology and AI Policy

The Engelberg Center has emerged as one of the world’s leading voices on the legal and policy challenges posed by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other emerging technologies. Jason Schultz’s work on facial recognition and the right of publicity provides frameworks for protecting civil rights in an era of pervasive surveillance technology. His collaboration with Richardson and Crawford on “Dirty Data, Bad Predictions” demonstrated how civil rights violations embedded in police data cascade through predictive policing systems, producing racially biased outcomes that compound existing inequalities.

Scott Hemphill’s research on digital platforms and competition policy addresses one of the most pressing regulatory questions of the digital age: how should antitrust law adapt to platform markets characterized by network effects, data advantages, and potential for anticompetitive self-preferencing? His work on “Disruptive Incumbents” examines how machine learning changes the dynamics of platform competition, while his collaboration with Tim Wu on nascent competitors has influenced regulatory approaches to acquisitions of potential rivals by dominant platforms.

Katherine Strandburg’s methodological innovation in using agent-based modeling as a legal theory tool represents a new frontier in legal scholarship, allowing researchers to simulate the effects of different legal rules on innovation ecosystems. Her work on generalizability in machine learning raises fundamental questions about how legal systems should assess the reliability of algorithmic decision-making, while her research on privacy and contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic provided timely guidance on balancing public health needs with privacy rights.

Advisory Board and Professional Network

The Engelberg Center’s advisory board represents a who’s who of American intellectual property and technology law. The board includes federal judges from the Federal Circuit — the specialized appellate court that handles all patent appeals — as well as district judges who regularly preside over major IP cases. Judge Raymond Chen and Judge Pauline Newman of the Federal Circuit and Judge Denise Cote and Judge Pierre Leval of the Second Circuit bring judicial perspective to the Center’s work.

The board’s law firm contingent includes partners at firms that handle the nation’s most significant IP litigation: Cravath Swaine and Moore, WilmerHale, Davis Polk and Wardwell, Kirkland and Ellis, Paul Hastings, Weil Gotshal and Manges, and McKool Smith among others. In-house counsel from some of the world’s most innovative companies serve on the board, including representatives from Apple (VP and Chief Litigation Counsel Noreen Krall), Google (Senior Patent Counsel Laura Sheridan), ByteDance/TikTok (General Counsel Erich Andersen), Microsoft, IBM Research, Intel, American Express, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, NBA Properties, and Walt Disney Company.

Nonprofit and policy members include representatives from the New York Public Library, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy, and the Engelberg Foundation itself. This extraordinary network ensures that the Center’s research is informed by the perspectives of those who create, protect, and challenge IP rights in practice, and that its policy recommendations are grounded in real-world experience. Students exploring the intersection of law and professional education may also appreciate our guide to the UPenn SEAS engineering programs for an engineering perspective on professional preparation.

Fellows and Staff

The Engelberg Center maintains an active fellowship program that brings together scholars and practitioners from diverse fields. Current and recent fellows include Jonathan Ashtor, a partner at Paul Weiss specializing in IP and technology M&A; Mala Chatterjee, an Associate Professor at Columbia Law School with a PhD in philosophy from NYU and JD summa cum laude from NYU who researches at the intersection of law, philosophy, IP, and free speech; and MC Forelle, a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Cornell Tech focusing on law, technology, culture, right to repair, and automotive IP.

The Center’s professional staff is led by Executive Director Michael Weinberg, previously General Counsel at Shapeways and VP at Public Knowledge, who also serves as President of the Board of the Open Source Hardware Association. Program Coordinator Nicole Arzt has served the Center since 2000, providing institutional continuity and organizational expertise recognized with the NYU Give-A-Violet Award. Program Manager Katrina Southerland brings experience in media, culture, and communications. Together, this team ensures that the Center’s ambitious research and programming agenda runs smoothly and reaches its intended audiences.

Publications and Open Access Leadership

The Engelberg Center has established itself as a leader in open access legal education and scholarship. Two free casebooks produced by Center faculty — Barton Beebe’s Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook and Jeanne Fromer and Christopher Sprigman’s Copyright Law: Cases and Materials — are each used in more than 60 law schools worldwide. These open-access textbooks represent a radical challenge to the traditional legal publishing model, making high-quality legal education materials available to anyone at no cost.

Faculty publications appear in the nation’s most prestigious law reviews and academic journals, including the NYU Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, and numerous specialty journals. The Center also produces policy papers, amicus briefs (including briefs in landmark cases like Google v. Oracle), and research reports that translate academic insights into actionable policy recommendations. Faculty members provide congressional testimony, serve on government advisory committees, and consult with international organizations, ensuring that the Center’s research has maximum real-world impact.

The Center’s events program, including conferences, workshops, and public lectures, provides additional channels for disseminating research and engaging with the broader legal and policy community. These events bring together academics, practitioners, regulators, and industry leaders for structured conversations about the most pressing innovation law challenges, creating a dynamic intellectual community that extends far beyond NYU’s campus. For students interested in how technology intersects with other professional disciplines, explore our guide to Northeastern’s graduate engineering programs.