J. Thomas McCarthy

J. Thomas McCarthy (born July 2, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan) is a Professor Emeritus at the University of San Francisco School of Law and an internationally recognized authority in the field of trademarks. He is the founding director of the McCarthy Institute for Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He has practiced, written, and taught in the field of trademarks and unfair competition and is a frequent speaker on the subject. He is the author of the authoritative work on intellectual property law, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition.

McCarthy is a member of the California and U.S. Supreme Court bars and is admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Education and personal life He holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Detroit in 1960. He served for several years on the Editorial Board of The Trademark Reporter.

In 2004, McCarthy lead the briefing team for Lasting in the United States Supreme Court case KP Permanent Make-Up, Inc. v. Lasting Impression I, Inc.. Lasting had taken the view, promoted by McCarthy in his treatise, that the fair use doctrine could not be a defense to trademark infringement when the use created a likelihood of confusion. However, there was a circuit split on this issue, and the Supreme Court decided against McCarthy's team. It held that confusion and fair use could coexist. The 1979 Rossman Award of the Patent and Trademark Office Society In 2018, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from World Trademark Review magazine.

He has delivered a number of significant lectures including the 1999 Niro Lecture at DePaul University College of Law, the 1997 Tenzer Lecture at Cardozo Law School, the 1995 H.S. Manges Lecture at Columbia University, and the 1989 Boal Memorial Lecture for the Brand Names Education Foundation at Northwestern University. In 1994, he was the Biebel & French Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Law & Technology at the University of Dayton. The treatise was first published in 1973 in two volumes.

Other books written by McCarthy include the two-volume treatise The Rights of Publicity and Privacy (with Roger Schechter) and McCarthy’s Desk Encyclopedia of Intellectual Property (Third Edition), (with Schechter & Franklyn).

McCarthy Institute McCarthy is the founding director of the McCarthy Institute for Intellectual Property and Technology Law. The institute is now located at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.