Christopher M. Holman

Christopher M. Holman is the Edward D. Ellison Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. His research focuses on intellectual property, patent law, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and the intersection of law, science, and technology.

Holman joined the UMKC faculty in 2005. He has also been a visiting professor at Drake University Law School, where he served as interim director of the Intellectual Property Center, and at DePaul University College of Law and the University of Kansas School of Law. He is a senior scholar at George Mason University’s Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy.

Before entering academia, Holman held senior intellectual-property and patent positions at several biotechnology companies, including PhyNexus, Maxygen, and Transgenomic. He also practiced patent law at Pennie & Edmonds and worked as a patent agent at Flehr Hohbach. Earlier, he conducted postdoctoral drug-discovery research at Roche Bioscience and taught chemistry at California State University, Hayward.

Holman is executive editor of the Biotechnology Law Report and has held leadership positions in the American Intellectual Property Law Association, American Bar Association, and Association of American Law Schools. He has also authored amicus curiae briefs in biotechnology patent cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Holman has twice received UMKC’s Daniel L. Brenner Faculty Publishing Award and received the university’s Marvin Lewis Rich Faculty Scholar Award.

Holman earned his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was an associate editor of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal and a judicial extern in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Davis, and his bachelor’s in chemistry from California State University, East Bay.