Dr Christian Mammen

Dr Christian E. (“Chris”) Mammen (1993, DPhil (Oxon), Law) is a leading Intellectual Property (IP) lawyer with Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP in San Francisco, where he is Office Managing Partner. Dr. Mammen represents a wide variety of companies on technology and IP issues, including AI. He has litigated numerous AI-related patent and copyright cases over the past ten years. In addition to his work for clients, Dr Mammen has an interest in the broader theoretical and ethical implications of AI. In 2024, whilst an Academic Visitor with the Oxford Faculty of Law, he was the lead author on a new white paper titled, “Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and the Requirement of Human Authors and Inventors in Copyright and Patent Law”. The study incorporates multidisciplinary perspectives including neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, design theory, and law. It investigates the role of human creativity in making a work eligible for protection under IP laws, and examines how current AI models measure up against the IP laws’ creativity requirements.

Dr. Mammen has received international recognition for his work in AI and IP, having lectured in the U.S., the U.K, Japan, Korea, and other countries, and having been quoted by major media outlets including Wired, VICE, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and others. His published works include “AI as Inventor” in The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence (2022), and he serves on a number of IP-related advisory boards and committees, including the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology Advisory Board, and the Silicon Valley Advanced Patent Law Institute Steering Committee.  Chris is also a co-founder and past Executive Board member of the Oxford Entrepreneurs Network and a limited partner in Oxonian Ventures, an early-stage venture fund for startups founded by Oxonians.