Public Patent Foundation

About PUBPAT

Board of Directors

Daniel B. Ravicher, President and Executive Director

PUBPAT's President, Executive Director, and Founder, Dan Ravicher, is a registered patent attorney with extensive experience litigating, licensing, prosecuting, and otherwise counseling clients with respect to patents. Ravicher received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s degree in materials science magna cum laude from the University of South Florida. Prior to founding the Public Patent Foundation, Ravicher practiced patent law with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, LLP, and Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, LLP, all in New York. Ravicher has also published dozens of legal articles and given numerous presentations regarding patent law.

Eben Moglen, Director

Eben Moglen is Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University Law School and General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation. Professor Moglen earned his PhD in History and law degree at Yale University during what he sometimes calls his "long, dark period" in New Haven. After law school he clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld of the United States District Court in New York City and to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He has taught at Columbia Law School -- and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Tel-Aviv University and the University of Virginia -- since 1987. In 2003 he was given the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award for efforts on behalf of freedom in the electronic society.

John R. Thomas, Director

John Thomas is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Professor Thomas received a Bachelor of Science degree from Carnegie Mellon University, his law degree from the University of Michigan, and an LLM from George Washington University, where he later served as Associate Professor of Law. He formerly served as law clerk to Chief Judge Helen W. Nies of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and Comparative Patent, Copyright and Unfair Competition Law in Munich, Germany; and, research scholar at the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo, Japan. He was previously associated with the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, L.L.P., in Washington, D.C. Professor Thomas has published numerous articles on intellectual property law and is also co-author of a patent law casebook and a one-volume treatise on intellectual property, both published by the West Publishing Company.