Ryan Abbott

Practice Areas

Appellate

Artificial Intelligence

Business Commercial

Civil Litigation

Education Law

Employment Law

Franchise and Distribution Law

Health Care

Higher Education & Title IX

Insurance

Intellectual Property

International & Cross Border

Personal Injury

Pharmaceuticals & Mass Torts

Professional Liability

Career

Ryan is partner at Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan, LLP, where his practice focuses on representing companies in the life science and information technology industries. These range from Fortune 25 enterprises to start-ups, and include software, biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies. Ryan assists with disputes, strategy, corporate and transactional matters, as well as with intellectual property rights including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret protections. His diverse educational and practice background allows him to contribute new perspectives and a business-oriented mindset to both conflicts and transactions.

Professional Memberships

2024–Present The Institute for Creativity and AI, City University of London

Advisory Board Member

2024–Present Global Intellectual Property Alliance (GLIPA)

Board Member

2021–Present Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA) Attorney Client Mediation and Arbitration Services (ACMAS)

Executive Committee Member

2021–Present Network Journal of Digital and Intellectual Rights & Society

Editorial Board Member

 Revista Rede de Direito Digital, Intelectual e Sociedade (RRDDIS)

2019–Present American Bar Association (ABA)

 2021–Present: International Coordinating Committee (ICC) Administrative Director of the Business Law Section Dispute Resolution Committee

 2020–Present: Inaugural Chair, Cross-Border Disputes Subcommittee

 2019–2023: Editor, Intellectual Property Section, Landslide Magazine

2020–2023 American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Emerging Technologies Committee

Co-Chair, AI Subcommittee

2019–Present All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence

Member, Data Governance Task Force

2019–Present International Law Association

Member Global Health Law Committee

2018–2019 European Commission Expert Working Group on New Technologies Formation

Expert

2017–2020 Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review College

Academic College Reviewer

2014–2016 Judge Paul R. Michel Intellectual Property American Inn of Court

Member

2013–2016 Valley Community Healthcare

Board of Governors

 Member of the Medical Affairs Committee

Publications

ELGAR CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE LAW, (Ryan Abbott and Elizabeth Rothman, eds., forthcoming 2025)

Frederick Abbott, et al., INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN AN INTEGRATED WORLD ECONOMY, 5th ed., Aspen Publishers (2024)

Ryan Abbott and Elizabeth Rothman, Disrupting Creativity: Copyright Law in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Florida Law Review (2023)

RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, Edward Elgar (Ryan Abbott ed., 2022)

Abbott, Ryan. The Reasonable Robot: Artificial intelligence and the Law, Cambridge University Press (2020)

Abbott, Ryan. I Think, Therefore I Invent: Creative Computers and the Future of Patent Law, Boston College Law Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (2016).

Abbott, Ryan and Ian Ayres. Evidence and Extrapolation: Mechanisms for Regulating Off-Label Uses of Drugs and Devices, 64 Duke L.J. 377 (2014).

Abbot, Ryan. World Intellectual Property Organization, Documenting Traditional Medical Knowledge (2014).

Abbott, Ryan. Big Data and Pharmacovigilance: Using Healthcare Information Exchanges to Revolutionize Drug Safety, 99 Iowa L. Rev. 225 (2013).

Languages Spoken

English

Expert in these Jurisdictions

California

New York

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal, Second and Fourth Circuits

U.S. Supreme Court

Registered Patent Attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Solicitor Advocate, England and Wales

Work Highlights

Ryan is an experienced trial and appellate attorney, having appeared as an advocate and lead counsel in numerous state and federal courts as well as in foreign courts and arbitration proceedings. Ryan most famously managed a major international litigation and prosecution effort involving the first patent applications to disclose inventions generated by an artificial intelligence without a traditional human inventor (“AI-Generated Inventions”). The applications, filed in eighteen jurisdictions, list the AI as the inventor, and the human owner of the AI, whom Ryan represents, as the patent owner. On June 28, 2021, the Times of London reported that this effort successfully resulted in the world’s first patent for an AI-Generated Invention in South Africa. Ryan is directly responsible for the litigation in the US and UK and managing the other actions.

Outside of the firm, Ryan is a mediator and arbitrator with JAMS, Professor of Law and Health Sciences at the University of Surrey School of Law, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

He is regularly featured in media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. Ryan also works as an expert witness which has included testifying in multiple federal courts. One United States District Judge wrote in summary of his testimony on expert issues of medicine and law, “[t]he Court found Dr. Abbott to be highly qualified and his testimony to be credible and convincing.”

Experience

2020–Present The Cantellus Group

Advisor

2020–2024 Williams Powell

Consultant

2020 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Consultant

2018–2020 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

Consultant

2018–Present JAMS, Inc.

Mediator and Arbitrator

2016–Present Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan, LLP

Partner

2016–Present University of Surrey School of Law

Professor and Chair of Law and Health Sciences

2015–Present Blue Ant, Inc.

Principal

2014–Present Valley Community Clinic

Attending Physician

2014–Present Abcentra

General Counsel

2013–Present University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine

Adjunct Associate Professor

 2015–2024 Adjunct Assistant Professor

 2013–2015 Visiting Assistant Professor

 Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research (GIM/HSR)

2013–2016 One LLP

Of Counsel

2012–2016 Southwestern Law School

Associate Professor

2012–2014 Maxim Physician Resources

Attending Physician

2009–2012 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

Consultant

2010 Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)

Consultant

2008–2010 World Health Organization (WHO)

Consultant

2006–2010 UCLA Center for East-West Medicine

Consultant

2009 Health Research For Action (HERA)

Consultant

2009 Summer Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP

Summer Associate

2008 Summer World Health Organization (WHO)

Intern, Department of Technical Cooperation for Essential Drugs and Traditional Medicine

Industry Sector Expertise

Information Technology

Life Sciences

Education

Awards