Ralph Oman

Ralph Oman (born 1940 in Huntington, New York) is an American lawyer and former Register of Copyrights. He is currently the Pravel, Hewitt, Kimball and Kreiger Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law at The George Washington University Law School. He was posted in Fort Cameron.

Following law school, Oman served as law clerk to C. Stanley Blair, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Maryland. From 1974 to 1975, Oman was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division.

Federal Government Service In 1975, Oman moved to the U.S. Senate, where he worked for Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania as Chief Minority Counsel on the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights. He helped the Senator draft the language and negotiate the compromises that resulted in the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. In 1977, Senator Scott retired and Oman became senior lawyer to Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, the Senate's leading proponent of strong copyright protection. In 1982, Oman became Chief Counsel of the newly revived Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks, and in 1985 he scheduled the first Senate hearing in 50 years on U.S. adherence to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

From the Chief Counsel position, Oman was appointed Register of Copyrights on September 23, 1985. As Register, he helped move the United States into the Berne Convention in 1989.

After retiring from federal service, Oman entered private practice. He began teaching at The George Washington University Law School in 1993. He is currently the Pravel, Hewitt, Kimball and Kreiger Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law at GW Law.

Amicus Curiae Allen v. Cooper, et al. Supreme Court of the United States, August 2019 - Copyright, Sovereign Immunity Allen v. Cooper, et al. Supreme Court of the United States, February 2019 - Copyright, Sovereign Immunity Allen v. Cooper, et al. United States Court of Appeals, October 2017 - Copyright, Sovereign Immunity Oracle America v. Google United States Court of Appeals, February 2017 – Copyright, Fair Use, Software Lisa R. Kirby, et al. v. Marvel Characters, et al. Supreme Court of the United States, June 2014 – Copyright, Work for Hire ABC, et al. v. Aereo Supreme Court of the United States, March 2014 - Copyright, Intellectual Property Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer United States Court of Appeals, November 2013 – Copyright, Laches Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Mark P. Becker United States Court of Appeals, February 2013 – Copyright, Fair Use American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers v. United States of America Supreme Court of the United States, June 2011 - Copyright, Electronic Files

Selected works