In Memoriam

• Citation: Vol. 49 No. 1
• Publication year: 2024

IN MEMORIAM

In Memoriam: Professor Dan Burk

My dear friend, colleague, and co-author Dan Burk died this week. Dan was one of the first people I met when I started teaching in the brand-new field of internet law in 1994. He and I have written together for decades, and for years we frequented the same conferences so often that literally everyone confused us for each other. He was a great person and a welcoming colleague to generations of junior scholars.

The world will not be the same without him.

Stanford Law held a conference February 9, 2024 to celebrate Dan's scholarship and his life. People came here from around the world to talk about how Dan and his work touched their lives. I just wish he could have been there to see how much he meant to so many people.

The photo shows me at the conference with Dan displayed in the slide shown in the background and a photo of Dan as we will remember him.

Mark A. Lemley (he/him). William H. Neukom Professor, Stanford Law School Director, Stanford Program in Law, Science, and Technology Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research Affiliated Professor, Stanford Symbolic Systems Program Of counsel, Lex Lumina PLLC co-founder, Lex Machina Inc. Email: mlemley@law.stanford.edu or mlemley@lex-lumina.com.

As the Chair of the Intellectual Property Law Section, in 2015 I had the great honor and privilege, on behalf of the IP Section, to present the Vanguard Award to Professor Dan Burk, a founding member of UC Irvine Law and the first Chancellor's Professor at the UCI Law School. With his passing on February 4, 2024, the IP community has lost an incredible intellectual property scholar and trailblazer.

Professor Burk's contributions to intellectual property law are vast and inspirational. He...