Christopher B. Seaman joined the Washington and Lee law faculty in 2012. His research and teaching interests include intellectual property (IP) law and civil procedure, with a particular focus on IP litigation and remedies for the violation of IP rights. Professor Seaman’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of law reviews and journals, including the Iowa Law Review, the BYU Law Review, the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. His empirical study of willful patent infringement was a winner of the 2010 Samsung-Stanford Patent Prize competition for outstanding new scholarship related to patent remedies. In addition, Professor Seaman has written articles on the history, constitutionality, and potential future of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Professor Seaman received his B.A. in 2000 from Swarthmore College and his J.D. in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and received the Edwin R. Keedy Law Review Award. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable R. Barclay Surrick of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 2004-2005 and practiced law at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago from 2005-2009, where he represented clients in patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret litigation in federal and state courts. Prior to joining Washington and Lee, Professor Seaman was a Visiting Assistant Professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Intellectual Property Articles
Best Mode Trade Secrets (with Brian J. Love), Yale Journal of Law & Technology (2012)
Trade secrecy and patent rights traditionally have been considered mutually exclusive. Trade secret rights are...
Willful Patent Infringement and Enhanced Damages After In re Seagate: An Empirical Study, Iowa Law Review (2012)
Willful patent infringement is a critical issue in patent litigation, as it can result in...
Reconsidering the Georgia-Pacific Standard for Reasonable Royalty Patent Damages, Brigham Young University Law Review (2010)
Determining damages for infringement is one of the most important—and controversial—issues in current patent litigation....
Voting Rights/Election Law Articles
An Uncertain Future for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: The Need for a Revised Bailout System, Saint Louis University Public Law Review (2010)
In Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder ("NAMUDNO"), 129 S. Ct. 2504...
The End of Preclearance As We Knew It: How the Supreme Court Transformed Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (with P. McCrary & R. Valelly), Michigan Journal of Race & Law (2006)
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires certain jurisdictions with a history...