Chris Lynch

Chris has spent his entire legal career working in Intellectual Property Law. He chaired the IP Practice Group at Foster Pepper PLLC from 2007-2010 and was the firm wide Lead Trademark Attorney at K&L Gates LLP from 1998-2006.  Chris was also an associate and partner at Paine Hamblen from 1987-1998. From 2010-2012, Chris served as an Assistant Professor at Gonzaga University School of Law; teaching Intellectual Property, International Intellectual Property, Advanced Trademark and Unfair Competition and coaching the school’s Saul Lefkowitz National Trademark Moot Court teams.   He was an Adjunct Professor at Gonzaga teaching numerous intellectual property courses and coaching the school’s trademark and patent moot court teams for nineteen years before that, and he also served as a Visiting Professor teaching Intellectual Property at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadlajara in Mexico.  Chris remains an Adjunct Professor at Gonzaga Law School as he joins Lee & Hayes.

As an attorney fully licensed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Chris is an intellectual property generalist – working on many diverse matters including intellectual property strategy development, licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property litigation.  Chris has worked on hundreds of technology transfers and license matters including license enforcement for numerous clients in many technology areas. He has also led technical and discovery teams in many patent litigation matters.  The subject matters include telecom switching, storage circuitry, database population, automated packaging machinery, accelerometer patches, radio notification, medical telecom services, neodymium magnets, and many electro-mechanical devices.

Chris has strong experience in technical standards and consortia.  He was the lead outside counsel for Microsoft to the Bluetooth and UPnP consortia during their critical formation stages, representing, Microsoft through the creation and activation of Membership Agreements, and the creation of Implementers’ Corporations.   

Serving as a Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, Chris was appointed to a three year term in 2008 by the Federal Judges in the Eastern District of Washington.  He has twice served as a Trustee for the Federal Bar in the Eastern District and been on the Executive Committee of the WSBA IP Section.   Chris was a founding member of the Law, Science and Technology Society at the University of Washington School of Law.   Outside of the classroom, Chris has given over sixty presentations to various legal groups on federal procedure, preemption, antitrust and intellectual property.