Thomas Field

Thomas Field Jr

Professor Emeritus
Office: UNH School of Law, 2 White Street, Concord, NH 03301

IP Basics  |   Linkedin®  |   IDEA Tribute

Professor Field fully retired in 2013, after helping launch Franklin Pierce Law Center in 1973. Before that, he examined patents (alkene polymers) in the U.S. Patent Office and taught and practiced briefly in Ohio.

Professor Field’s curricular responsibilities included Administrative Process (emphasis on IP and technological regulation) and Fundamentals of IP (for first year and other students lacking IP backgrounds). For a time, he was the school’s content webmaster. He also founded and, over a ten-year span, moderated a listserv for IP professors. Besides serving in such capacities and on various committees over the years, he often had a formal role in advising student editors of the University of New Hampshire School of Law’s premier IP journal, IDEA.

Field has been admitted to several bars but has never maintained active status. He has, however, sometimes served as consultant or expert witness. He also authored several amicus briefs for the Supreme Court and one for the Federal Circuit, supporting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the landmark Zurko case.

In the same vein, he arbitrated and mediated disputes under the aegis of the American Arbitration Association and the New Hampshire Public Employee Labor Relations Board. Also, during four years as a consumer-advocate-arbitrator, he helped resolve more than 150 local Chrysler warranty disputes. Further serving the public interest, he offered on the web and in more than 150,000 booklets basic IP advice for nonlawyers.

Field has published many articles and op-ed columns, as well as several books. He also chaired several conferences on a variety of technology-related topics and was the founding editor-in-chief of Risk: Issues in Health, Safety and Environment, a peer-reviewed journal with a multidisciplinary editorial board. His series of arbitration exercises long distributed by the Center for Computer-Assisted Instruction were written using an authoring application that won a programming competition sponsored by the Apple Programmers and Developers Association.

In tribute to Professor Field's long service to the school and its IP programs, in 2014 IDEA published an article discussing his accomplishments as recounted by students, alums and colleagues, Professor Thomas G. Field, Jr.: Pioneer in Intellect Property Education, Teacher, Mentor, and Scholar.

Education
  • AB, (Chemistry) West Virginia University
  • JD, West Virginia University
  • LLM, (Trade Regulation) New York University (1969-70 Food and Drug Law Fellow)