Andrew W. Torrance
- Professor
Contact Info
Biography —
Andrew W. Torrance is the Paul E. Wilson Distinguished Professor of Law and Associate Dean for International and Comparative Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, and a winner of a 2015 University Scholarly Achievement Award at the University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 1997, J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2000, and Bachelor of Science from Queen’s University (Canada) in 1991. He joined the University of Kansas School of Law in 2005 as Associate Professor. In 2009, he was named a Docking Faculty Scholar, a university-wide program that honors faculty members who have distinguished themselves in their early careers, and in 2011 he was promoted to tenured Full Professor. He is a former Earl B. Shurtz Research Professor. At KU, Torrance served as a member of the Faculty and University Executive Councils (2010-2013), and as the elected President of the Faculty Senate (2012-2013).
Prior to his arrival at KU, Torrance taught at Harvard University as Eliot House Resident Tutor in Biology and Law (1993-2000), Tutor in Biology (1999-2005), and Hrdy Visiting Professor of Conservation Biology (2003). In addition, he has been a Fellow in Law, Innovation, and Growth at the Searle Center at Northwestern University Law School (2009-2010), a Manza Scholar at the DePaul University College of Law School (2010), a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington School of Law (2011-2012), a Visiting Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (2014), and a Visiting Scholar in Behavioral and Policy Sciences at the MIT Sloan School of Management since 2011. In 2008, Torrance served as a policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack H. Obama on his Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Committee.
Torrance teaches and conducts research in patent law, intellectual property, innovation, food and drug regulation, biotechnology law, biodiversity law, biolaw, and empirical, experimental, and big data approaches to the law. Specific research foci include open, user, and collaborative innovation, design, and legal issues surrounding genes, biotechnology, genetically modified organisms, synthetic biology, conservation biology, and de-extinction.
Torrance has given more than 100 scholarly presentations at numerous universities, research organizations, governments, and intergovernmental agencies in seven countries. His invited presentations have included a Google TechTalk at Google’s main Mountain View campus in California (posted on the Google TechTalk channel as “The Patent Game: Experiments in the Cathedral of Law”), a research talk at Microsoft Research in Seattle, two speeches at the Organization for Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) at their Paris, France, headquarters, keynote addresses for Genome Canada and the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) annual conference, and two presentations to the National Academies in Washington, D.C. Torrance has published more than 25 scholarly works. His scholarship has appeared in such journals as the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, the Stanford Technology Law Review, the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. He was commissioned in 2012 to write a report for the National Academies. Torrance and his research have been regularly featured in the media, including NPR, Forbes, the Seattle Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Torrance practiced biotechnology patent law at Fish & Richardson PC, the world’s largest intellectual property law firm, after working as a summer associate at both Morrison & Foerster LLC and Fish & Richardson P.C. He served as in-house patent counsel at Inverness Medical Innovations, a global biotechnology company with headquarters in Boston, and as the first in-house patent counsel at Stirling Medical Innovations, a cardiac diagnostics biotechnology company based in Scotland. He is a board member at several companies and nonprofit organizations. Torrance founded the annual Biolaw Conference, and co-founded the leading annual patent conference, PatCon. Torrance led the intellectual property department at the Eli and Edythe Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard from August 2019 to December 2020.
Education —
Research —
- Intellectual property
- Patent law
- Innovation law
- Biotechnology
- Biolaw
- Food and drug law
- Biodiversity law
- Climate change law
- International environmental law
Selected Presentations —
2020
September
Public Health: Regulation, Innovation, and Preparation Roundtable, Center for the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, Arlington, Virginia (Invited commentator) (September 17-18, 2020)
“Legal Analytics”, 2020 Colorado Judicial Conference, Vail, Colorado (September 14, 2020) (Postponed)
“Patently Broad: Intellectual Property for Advancing Biology”, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA (Invited) (September 10, 2020)
April
“Free Innovation and the Law”, MIT Class 15.356 (Invited) (April 22, 2020)
February
“Patent Analytics”, Texas A&M Qatar, Qatar (Invited) (February 9, 2020)
“The Future of Regulation”, George Washington University School of Policy, Washington, D.C. (Invited) (February 4, 2020)
January
“Innovation Hypercycles: The Birth and Death of Technology Hotspots”, TEDxQueensU, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (January 26, 2020) (Video of TEDxQueensU Talk available in October 2020)
2019
December
“Regulation of Genome Editing”, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA (Invited) (December 6, 2019)
November
“Empirical Analysis of Patent Owner Type and Patent Importance for all Patent Litigations from 2000-Current Day”, Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA (Invited) (November 14, 2019)
“FDA Law and Patient Innovation”, MIT Innovation Lab, Washington, DC (Invited) (November 6, 2019)
October
“Expert Witnesses and Legal Analytics”, American College of Business Judges, Pittsburgh, PA (Invited) (October 31, 2019)
“Legal Analytics” (11 lectures), LEC Judges Conference, Santa Fe, NM (Invited) (October 16-19, 2019)
September
“Breaking Hamilton’s Law”, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research Conference (“Does Hamilton Still Rule? – His Continuing Influence in Science and Society 50 Years Back and Beyond”), New College, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom (Invited Coorganizer and Cohost) (September 6, 2019)
July
MIT Innovation Lab, Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI (Invited participant)
“Global Patterns of Technical Knowledge Flow”, 17th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands, (Competitively selected) (July 9, 2019)
Village Elders Meeting, 17th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands (Invited participant and Village Elder) (August 7, 2019)
May
“Gene Editing – The Elements of Regulatory Style”, Gruter Institute Annual Conference, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley, CA (Invited) (May 21, 2019)
April
“Legal Analytics”, Foulston Siefkin LLC (Invited) (April 11, 2019)
“Global Patterns in Technological Knowledge Flow”, PatCon9, University of Kansas School of Law (April 5, 2019)
March
“WTO-TRIPs and Pharmaceutical Knowledge Flow”, Biolaw Lapalooza 3.0, Stanford Law School, (Competitively selected) (March 30, 3019)
MIT Innovation Lab Meeting, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (March 28, 2019)
February
The Ditchley Foundation Conference, “The Intersection of Machine Learning and Genetic Engineering: What Should be Our Checklist for Society and State as We Blast Off?”, Ditchley Park, Enstone, Chipping Norton, United Kingdom (February 7-9, 2019)
January
“The Law of Ideas”, Self Fellowship Lecture, Self Fellowship Program, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (January 14, 2019)
2018
December
MIT Innovation Lab Meeting, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (December 2-3, 2018)
November
“Patent Analytics”, School of Innovation, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (October 30, 2018)
October
“Synthetic Biology Governance”, BioSummit 2018, MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (October 26, 2018)
“Global Ebbs and Flows in Knowledge – A Big Data Network Analysis of Technical Information Exchange within the Worldwide Patent System”, Intellectual Property Statistics for Decision Makers Conference, European Union Intellectual Property Office, Alicante, Spain (October 24, 2018)
“Scientific Leadership”, Gruter Conference on Leadership, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. (October 20, 2018)
“Most Important Biotechnology Patent Cases of 2017”, Akron Law School Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, University of Akron School of Law, Akron, OH (October 5, 2018)
September
“Uncertain Diagnosis”, BIO IP & Diagnostics Symposium, Biotechnology Innovation Organization, Washington, D.C. (September 28, 2018)
“Global Ebbs and Flows in Knowledge – A Big Data Network Analysis of Technical Information Exchange within the Worldwide Patent System”, Canadian Law and Economics Association annual conference, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (September 22, 2018)
“Gene Editing – The Elements of Regulatory Style”, Future of Regulation Conference, Regulatory Studies Center, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. (Invited) (September 12, 2018)
Commentator, Wiet Life Science Law Scholars Conference, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago, IL (Invited) (September 7, 2018)
August
“GINA and Gene Editing: Genetic Discrimination in the Age of Modified Genomes”, 16th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, New York University, New York, NY, (Competitively selected) (August 6, 2018)
Village Elders Meeting, 16th Annual Open and User Innovation Conference, New York University, New York, NY (Invited participant and Village Elder) (August 5, 2018)
July
MIT Innovation Lab Meeting, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (July 17-18, 2018)
June
“Global Ebbs and Flows in Knowledge: Technical Information Exchange within the Worldwide Patent System”, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) International Summer Patent Institute (Invited) (June 18, 2018)
May
“The Worldwide Technology Web: A Global Patent Citation Network”, Gruter Institute Annual Conference, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley, CA (Invited) (May 23, 2018)
April
“Legal Impatients”, Innovation Lab Meeting, Harvard Business School, Allston, MA (Invited speaker) (April 4, 2018)
March
“GINA and Gene Editing: Genetic Discrimination in the Age of Modified Genomes”, Biolaw Lapalooza 2.0, Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA (Accepted speaker) (March 23, 2018)
“World Technology Knowledge Flow: A Big Data Network Approach Using the Worldwide Patent System”, World Trade Organization, Geneva, Switzerland (Invited speaker) (March 16, 2018)
“A Worldwide Patent Citation Network”, PatCon8, University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego, CA (March 2, 2018)
2017
November
MIT Innovation Lab Meeting, Harvard Business School, Allston, MA (Invited participant) (November 28-29, 2017)
“All Patents Great and Small: A Big Data Network Approach to Valuation”, Intellectual Property Statistics for Decision Makers (“IPSDM”), Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”), Mexico City, Mexico (Competitively selected) (November 14, 2017)
September
“Innovation Hypercycles: The Birth and Death of Technology Hotspots”, IT, Innovation, Value & Productivity, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand (Invited) (September 28, 2017)
“A First Comprehensive Worldwide Patent Citation Network”, Canadian Law and Economics Association Annual Conference, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (September 16, 2017)
July
MIT Innovation Lab Meeting, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (July 9-10, 2017)
“The Patent Trollbooth: A Participatory Simulation Game Approach to NPE Behavior”, 15th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (Competitively selected) (July 11, 2017)
Village Elders Meeting, 15th Annual Open and User Innovation Conference, Harvard Business School, Allston, MA (Invited participant and Village Elder) (July 9, 2017)
June
Biotechnology Industry Organization Annual Conference, San Diego, CA (Competitively selected participant) (June 19-22, 2017)
May
“Trolls are Good (at Choosing Valuable Patents)”, Gruter Institute Annual Conference, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley, CA (Invited) (May 24, 2017)
“The Patent Trollbooth: A Participatory Simulation Game Approach to NPE Behavior”, Roundtable on Empirical Methods in Intellectual Property, United States Patent and Trademark Office/Northwestern Law School/Cardozo Law School, New York, NY (Competitively selected) (May 20, 2017)
“All Patents Great and Small – Innovation Analytics in the Data Gold Rush”, ZEW Conference on Innovation and Patenting, Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung, Mannheim, Germany (Invited Keynote) (May 15, 2017)
April
Biolaw Career Panel, Bio LawLapalooza (The Biolaw Conference), Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA (April 21, 2017) (Invited)
“Aukward Law”, Bio LawLapalooza (The Biolaw Conference), Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA (April 20, 2017)
“Trolls Are Good (At Choosing Valuable Patents)”, The Patent Conference (PatCon7), Northwestern Law School, Chicago, IL (April 7, 2017)
March
“Free Innovation”, Third Roundtable: Thinking through Intellectual Property Rights: Charting a Path Forward, Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science/Ministry of Economic Development and Growth - Centre for International Governance Innovation, Ontario Investment and Trade Centre, Toronto, Canada (Invited) (March 30, 2017)
“Patent Analytics”, 2017 SYMPOSIUM on the EFFECTIVENESS of the CANADIAN PATENT SYSTEM/SYMPOSIUM de 2017 sur l’EFFICACITÉ du SYSTÈME CANADIEN DES BREVETS, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada (Invited “expert”) (March 24, 2017)
MIT Innovation Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (March 21-22, 2017)
The Future of Patent Analytics: A foresight study of breakthrough enabling technologies, Centre for Technology Management, Institute for Manufacturing, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (Invited participant) (March 3, 2017)
February
“Trolls Are Good (At Choosing Valuable Patents)”, Boston University School of Law, Boston, MA (Competitively selected) (February 11, 2017)
“Law of the Genome”, BioGenomics2017 - Global Biodiversity Genomics Conference, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. (Invited) (February 22, 2017)
January
“The Rule of Patent Law – Innovation in Stormy Seas”, LEC Rule of Law Workshop, Captiva Island, FL (Competitively selected for workshop) (January 22, 2017)
“Aukward Law – Legal Considerations for Great Auk Deextinction”, University of the Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands (Invited) (January 14, 2017)
2016
November
“All Patents Great and Small: A Big Data Network Approach to Valuation”, Intellectual Property Statistics for Decision Makers (“IPSDM”), Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”), Sydney, Australia (Competitively selected) (November 16, 2016)
“Impatient Innovation”, MIT Innovation Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited) (November 13-14, 2016)
October
Bridges II Conference, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL (Invited participant) (October 27-29, 2016)
“All Patents Great and Small: A Big Data Network Approach to Valuation”, King’s College, University of London, London, U.K. (Invited speaker) (October 21, 2016)
Meeting about Legal Informatics, Wilberforce Society, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K. (Invited speaker) (October 19, 2016)
“All Patents Great and Small: A Big Data Network Approach to Valuation”, University of Toronto Faculty of Law (Invited) (October 13, 2016)
September
“Patent Trolls are Good (at Choosing Valuable Patents)”, Canadian Law and Economics Conference, University of Toronto Faculty of Law (September 2016)
“Psychological and Sociological Perspectives on Open, User, and Collaborative Innovation”, Psychology and Sociology of Creativity and Invention Conference, Stanford Law School (September 2016) (Invited)
August
“Are Engineered Sequences Copyrightable?: The U.S. Copyright Office Addresses a Matter of First Impression” (Holman, C., Torrance, A.W., & Gustaffson, C.; presented by C. Holman), Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, Stanford Law School, CA (August 12, 2015)
“Trolls and Top Patents”, Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, Stanford Law School, CA (August 11, 2015)
“Are Litigated Patents More Valuable?”, 14th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, Harvard Business School, Allston, MA (August 2, 2016)
July
Village Elders Meeting, 14th Annual Open and User Innovation Conference, Harvard Business School, Allston, MA (Invited participant and Village Elder) (July 31, 2016)
MIT Innovation Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (July 25-26, 2016)
June
“Aukward: Extinction is Fornever”, NeueHouse Speakers Series, NeueHouse LA, Los Angeles, CA (Invited) (June 29, 2016)
May
“Genetic Modification Editing – The Elements of CRISPR Style”, Gruter Institute Annual Conference, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley, CA (Invited) (May 26, 2016)
“Are Litigated Patents More Valuable”, Gruter Institute Annual Conference, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley, CA (Invited) (May 24, 2016)
April
“Patient Innovation – FDA Should Pave, Not Block, the Way”, MIT Innovation Laboratory Meeting, La Jolla, CA (hosted by Dexcom) (Invited) (April 22, 2016)
“Design Patent Developments”, USPTO Design Day 2016, United States Patent & Trademark Office, Detroit, MI (Invited) (April 19, 2016)
March
“Free Innovation”, Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Toronto, Canada (Invited) (March 23, 2016)
February
“Are Litigated Patents More Important?”, 13th Annual Works in Progress in Intellectual Property Conference, University of Washington School of Law (February 20, 2016)
“Are Litigated Patents More Important?”, Technology Law and Policy Colloquium: Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw Focus, Georgetown University Law Center (Invited) (February 8, 2016)
2015
December
“The History and Lessons Learned from Regulating GMOs,” National Academies (ILAR) Workshop on “Gene Editing to Modify Animal Genomes for Research – Scientific and Ethical Considerations”, a Workshop of the Roundtable on Science and Welfare in Laboratory Animal Use, National Academies, Washington, D.C. (Invited) (December 8, 2015)
November
“Started from the Bottom Now We’re Here – A Comparative Approach to the ‘Promise of the Patent’”, Fourth Annual U of T Patent Colloquium, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Invited) (November 20, 2015)
“Are Litigated Patents More Important”, CodeX Annual Conference, Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, CA (Invited) (November 18, 2015)
October
MIT Innovation Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (Invited participant) (October 16, 2015)
“Are Litigated Patents More Important?”, Intellectual Property Law Scholars Roundtable, Texas A&M Law School, Fort Worth, Dallas, TX (October 9, 2015)
“The Right to Innovate”, MIT 15.356 - Product and Service Development in the Internet Age, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA (October 6, 2015)
September
“Are Litigated Patents More Important?”, Canadian Law and Economics Annual Conference, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Toronto, Canada (September 25, 2015)
August
“Are Litigated Patents More Important?”, Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, DePaul College of Law, Chicago, IL (August 7, 2015)
July
“Innovating not Waiting – NightScout inside the Innovation Wetlands”, 13th Annual Open and User Innovation Society Meeting, Fundção Calouste Gulbenkian and Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, Lisbon, Portugal (July 13, 2015)
June
“Aukward Law – Laws Governing Deextinction”, Great Auk Deextinction Meeting, The Center for Life, Newcastleupon-Tyne, United Kingdom (Invited) (June 25, 2015)
"Values in Impact Assessment" (Commentary), Hastings Center Meeting on "Values in Impact Assessment" (NSFfunded report on synthetic biology), Hastings Center, Garrison, NY (Invited) (June 18-19, 2015)
Memberships —
American Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science