Biography

Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law, and the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, an accredited NGO member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which advocates for core principles of socially equitable access, inclusion, and empowerment in the development and implementation of the IP ecosystem.

After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal (today the Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice). He is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars and has practiced intellectual property, bankruptcy, and commercial law, including a decade in private practice with the former international law firm of Coudert Brothers. Professor Mtima has testified before Congress in support of legislation to promote IP inclusivity, including the Unleashing American Innovators Act, which President Biden signed into law on December 29, 2022. He has served as a member of the Advisory Council for the United States Court of Federal Claims, President of the Giles S. Rich Inn of Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a member of the BNA Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal Advisory Board and the founding Editorial Board for the ABA intellectual property periodical Landslide, and a Distinguished Libra Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Maine School of Law. He is currently a member of the Patent Public Advisory Council for the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Copyright Alliance Advisory Board, the USPTO Patent Pro Bono Council, the US IP Alliance Board, the Penn State Dickinson Law Advisory Board, the ALI Practical Lawyer Editorial Board, and is a non-resident C-IP2 Senior Scholar at the Center for IP & Innovation Policy, George Mason School of Law.

Professor Mtima is the co-editor/contributing author of The Cambridge Handbook of Intellectual Property Social Justice (Cambridge University Press 2024); co-author of Transnational Intellectual Property Law (West Academic 2016); editor/contributing author of Intellectual Property, Social Justice, and Entrepreneurship: From Swords to Ploughshares (Edward Elgar 2015) and has published numerous scholarly and professional articles in the field of intellectual property law.