Christopher Larkin Appointed As TTAB Administrative Trademark Judge

Christopher Larkin has been appointed to the position of Administrative Trademark Judge at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. His appointment brings the total number of TTAB judges to 26.

Christopher Larkin comes to the Board from his position as a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. He has been a partner there since 2002 and at other firms for the preceding 15 years. Previous law firm partner positions include those at the Los Angeles firms of Small Larkin and Graham & James. Before taking on his first partnership position, Mr. Larkin served as an associate in the firms of Graham & James and Townley & Updike (in New York). In all of these law firm positions, spanning 35 years of law practice, Mr. Larkin has been involved in a wide-ranging intellectual property practice, focused primarily on such matters as trademark clearance, prosecution, counseling, licensing and litigation. The litigation practice has involved proceedings in state and federal courts, including federal appellate courts, and before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Mr. Larkin has also served many years as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Southern California Law School, teaching Internet Law, Trademark Law and Trademark Law in Practice. His professional affiliations are many and varied, and include a number of leadership positions on committees of the International Trademark Association (INTA). He was the author of the INTA amicus curiae brief to the United States Supreme Court in Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Prods. Co., 514 U.S. 159 (1995). Mr. Larkin has been a frequent author, lecturer and presenter on trademark topics for more than 20 years and has co-chaired six Practising Law Institute programs on practice before the USPTO and TTAB in trademark matters.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Mr. Larkin earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in New York, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and a Young B. Smith Prize recipient.

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Text (except for quoted material) Copyright John L. Welch 2016.