Kathleen M. O'Malley
US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Honorable Kathleen (Kate) O'Malley has been a Federal Judge for 27 years. She was appointed to the District Court in 1994 at the age of 37 and was elevated to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2010. Judge O'Malley is the only former District Court judge ever appointed to the CAFC. The CAFC is the only Court of Appeals in the country that handles appeals of patent cases, presiding over appeals from all fora in which such matters originate-District Courts, the Court of Claims, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the Patent Trial and Trademark Office, and the International Trade Commission. Judge O'Malley is intimately familiar with all questions relating to patent rights, including infringement, validity, valuation, ownership, and venue questions. She also has substantial experience with other intellectual property (IP) issues-Copyright, Trademark, Trade Secret, and the intersection of IP and antitrust.
Judge O'Malley has gained a reputation as a talented and thoughtful jurist, who lectures regularly on various IP topics, including the importance of IP to innovation and the importance of innovation to the economy. She has given over 50 speeches in her time on the bench. For her contributions to the development of IP law, she has received the following honors: the Sedona Conference Lifetime Achievement Award, the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association Jefferson Medal, the New York Intellectual Property Law Association Outstanding Public Service Award, and the Intellectual Property Owners Association's 2020 Distinguished IP Professional Award and was named to the Globe Business Media Group's IP Hall of Fame.
Judge O'Malley has an international reputation as an expert in IP with a deep understanding of international IP and competition law principles. She is the only U.S. representative on the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) judicial advisory council, participates in WIPO's project relating to the ethical and IP implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and, at the invitation of the Queen's College of London, served on a committee to establish an IP court system in the Ukraine and to train the judges thereon. She has also trained judges, lawyers, and stakeholders on the U.S. IP system in over a dozen countries around the world.
While on the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio from 1994-2010, Judge O'Malley not only presided over a full range of IP cases, but oversaw major mass-tort related multidistrict litigation (MDL) matters, a commercial money related MDL, securities fraud and antitrust class actions and related criminal proceedings, actions relating to auditing malpractice and Ponzi schemes, and a large number of white-collar criminal prosecutions.
In addition to her judicial duties, Judge O'Malley has worked on numerous projects relating to the intersection of science and the law and the education of the judiciary on how best to handle and understand such issues. At the invitation of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Technology and the Federal Judicial Center, Judge O'Malley served on the Committee on the Development of the Third Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. She also recently co-chaired a planning committee for a workshop on Emerging Areas of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and the Courts that explored, among other cutting edge scientific questions, legal questions relating to climate change, the ethical and IP implications of AI, implicit bias, computer science, and engineering. She is also an avid member of the American Inns of Court movement, whose mission is to mentor young lawyers and to further professionalism and civility in the legal profession. The Kathleen M. O'Malley Inn of Court was recently chartered in Cleveland, Ohio as a tribute to Judge O'Malley's contributions to IP.
Before joining the bench, Judge O'Malley served as Chief Counsel and First Assistant to the Ohio Attorney General. In those roles, respectively, she supervised 350 government lawyers representing the State of Ohio in civil, criminal, and regulatory matters and overseeing over 1,100 total employees fulfilling all aspects of the Office's mission. Judge O'Malley began her legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. She received her A.B. in Economics and History from Kenyon College, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and with High Honors and earned her JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, graduating summa cum laude and Order of the Coif.
(03/22)
