Tyler Ochoa

Tyler T. Ochoa is a Professor with the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California.  He received an A.B. degree from Stanford University, with distinction, in 1983 and a J.D. degree from Stanford Law School, with distinction, in 1987.  In 1987-88, he was a clerk for the Hon. Cecil F. Poole of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  From 1988-1993, he was an associate with the law firm of Brown & Bain, in Palo Alto, California, where he specialized in copyright and trade secret litigation involving computer software.  Prior to joining the faculty at Santa Clara, he was a Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California.

Professor Ochoa is a co-author (with Craig Joyce and Michael Carroll) of Copyright Law (Carolina Academic Press 12th ed. forthcoming 2025), a leading copyright casebook; a co-author (with Shubha Ghosh and Mary LaFrance) of Understanding Intellectual Property Law (LexisNexis 4th ed. 2020), a student hornbook; the sole author (former co-author, with the late Howard Abrams) of annual updates to The Law of Copyright (West 2024), a comprehensive treatise; and a co-author of Celebrity Rights: Rights of Publicity in the United States and Abroad (Carolina Academic Press 2d ed. forthcoming 2026).  His article, Patent and Copyright Term Extension and the Constitution: A Historical Perspective, 49 J. Copyr. Soc’y U.S.A. 19 (2001), was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003).  He has published numerous academic articles, and he has filed many amicus briefs in copyright cases, including some that have been cited and relied on by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Prof. Ochoa has spoken on copyright law at programs sponsored by the U.S. Copyright Office, the Copyright Society of the USA, the Korea Copyright Commission, the California Lawyers Association, the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association, the San Diego Intellectual Property Law Association, the Orange County Intellectual Property Law Association, the Washington State Bar Association, the Houston Intellectual Property Law Association, the Nashville Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, the Practising Law Institute, the Society of American Archivists, the American Association of Museums, the Museum Computer Network, and the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage; and at numerous law schools in the United States and abroad.

In addition to his other accomplishments, Prof. Ochoa was a two-time champion on the TV game show Jeopardy!, and a champion on the TV game show Win Ben Stein’s Money.

For a list of Professor Ochoa’s publications, please visit https://law.scu.edu/faculty/all-publications/?prof=503718.