Michael Risch

Michael Risch is a professor of law at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. His teaching and scholarship focus on intellectual property and internet law, with an emphasis on patents, trade secrets and information access. His articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and Iowa Law Review, among other journals. His work has also appeared at the Yale Law Journal Online, and Penn Law Review Online. Risch is a contributor at the Written Description blog and a periodic guest contributor at the Patently-O, Prawfsblawg, and Faculty Lounge blogs. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Risch is also an avid computer programmer and has customized, installed and maintained portal websites for both his own academic pursuits and his former firm. He also developed an electronic mail plug-in that allowed early versions of Novell Groupwise email software to seamlessly use Pretty Good Privacy encryption; Network Associates, the maker of PGP software, purchased the software in 1998. Risch is a co-author of a book on software development for Novell Groupwise.

Risch graduated from Stanford University with honors and distinction in public policy and with distinction in quantitative economics; he was a national merit scholar there. He earned his law degree at the University of Chicago, where he graduated with high honors and was an Olin Fellow in Law & Economics and a Bradley Fellow in Law & Economics.