USPTO appoints law professor as Detroit satellite office director

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2026

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

USPTO appoints law professor as Detroit satellite office director

University of Nebraska College of Law professor Christal Sheppard has been appointed as the first director of the USPTO’s satellite office in Detroit

Sheppard will begin in the role on February 9.

She is an assistant professor of law at the University of Nebraska College of Law, where she co-founded a concentration in intellectual property law. She teaches patent, international intellectual property, science and law, and legislation and the political process.

Before joining the University of Nebraska, Sheppard was the chief counsel on patents and trademarks for the Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives. She has also held roles at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Foley & Lardner, and the Office of the General Counsel of the International Trade Commission.

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

New platform, which covers SEPs covering the Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 standards, includes 10 patent owners
The Texas-based IP litigation hires take King & Spalding’s partner appointments from pre-merger Winston & Strawn up to 12 this year
Sunny Su explains how her team overcame challenges with orchard evidence collection to secure a favourable plant variety decision from China’s top court
Flexible working firm continues trajectory from 2025 with appointment of Matthew Grant and Letao Qin
Anousha Davies, associate and trademark attorney at Birketts, unpicks how the university’s reputation enabled it to see off a proposed trademark for ‘Cambridge Rowing’
IP lawyers, who say they are encouraging clients to build up ‘tariff resilience’, should treat the risks posed by recent orders as a core consideration in cross-border licensing
Regulatory changes and damages risks are prompting Canadian firms and clients to opt for settlements in generic and biosimilar cases
News of Via Licensing Alliance adding two new members and Nokia’s proposal to extend interim licences to Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount were also among the top talking points
A new claim filed by Ericsson, and a request for access to documents, were also among recent developments
Cooley and Stikeman Elliott advised 35Pharma on the deal, which will allow GSK to get its hands on S235, an investigational medicine for pulmonary hypertension
Gift this article