John Josef Molenda is a member of the Supreme Court & Appellate and Intellectual Property practices in Mayer Brown’s New York office.

John’s appellate practice focuses particularly on patent appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and his experience includes substantial involvement in twelve such appeals. Those appeals have involved a wide variety of technologies, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, chemical compositions, polymers, and mechanical devices. John routinely advises clients on issues relating to Federal Circuit practice and procedure, and he recently served as a guest lecturer on Federal Circuit practice at Fordham University Law School. Prior to private practice, John served as a judicial law clerk with the Honorable Alan D. Lourie of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

John is an active member of the Federal Circuit community. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Rules Committee for the Federal Circuit Bar Association (“FCBA”) and previously served as Co-Chair of the Legislation Committee and Co-Vice-Chair of the Patent Litigation Committee. John has moderated numerous webcasts for the FCBA on a variety of topics, including landmark patent decisions before the Supreme Court (KSR v. Teleflex; eBay v. MercExchange) and the Federal Circuit (Therasense v. Becton Dickinson; In re Seagate; Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa). He has also written several papers on current legal issues at the Federal Circuit, with a focus on claim construction methodology and the deference afforded to claim construction decisions.

John obtained B.S. degrees in Chemistry and History from Vanderbilt University in 1991, graduating cum laude, with Honors in the College of Arts and Science. He remained at Vanderbilt and earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry, focusing on pharmaceutical design and evaluation. His graduate work led to seven publications, six of which were peer-reviewed. Following completion of graduate school in 1994, John conducted post-doctoral research in Biochemistry at New York University. He then pursued his legal education at the University of Michigan Law School, graduating in 1998.