Wade J. Savoy
Visiting Associate Professor of Law
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Courses: Copyrights and New Media, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Adventures in Intellectual Property Group Practice.

Professor Savoy joined the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law faculty as a Visiting Associate Professor for Fall 2009, having previously served as Practitioner in Residence for the school in Spring 2009.

Before joining the law school, Professor Savoy was Assistant General Counsel of Intellectual Property for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., where he served as the head of Wal-Mart’s intellectual property practice group.  He was the first in-house intellectual property attorney hired by Wal-Mart and helped to grow the group to include more than a dozen attorneys, paralegals, and staff.  In addition to overseeing Wal-Mart’s domestic and international trademark portfolio including many brands annually  grossing over a billion dollars each, handling multi-million dollar transactions, and contending with the myriad of issues the world's largest retailer generated on a daily basis, Professor Savoy developed and conducted the first mandatory intellectual property training program for thousands of Wal-Mart’s buyers and product development employees and traveled to China and back to create programs to review thousands of products to avoid intellectual property issues.  Before joining Wal-Mart, Professor Savoy was with the intellectual property group of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (now K&L Gates), where he formed and headed an Internet enforcement team and had a varied practice of intellectual property litigation, prosecution, and corporate transactions. 

In his teaching and research, Professor Savoy shows a particular interest in the application of copyright law to the burgeoning world of digital content, including finding the gaps in consumer expectations when translating from the brick-and-mortar world to the digital world (e.g., being able to sell or give away a used book but not being able to do the same with a Kindle e-book) and exploring whether and how the law and content providers should adapt to meet those expectations. 

At Texas Wesleyan, Professor Savoy also focuses on reaching out to the local community, including museums, libraries, business organizations, the local bar, etc., to offer intellectual property training and education, from topical issues to “101” seminars, giving students an opportunity to research, prepare, and give public presentations, with an emphasis on translating legal concepts into understandable terms. Professor Savoy holds a J.D. and Certificate of Intellectual Property from Chicago-Kent College of Law, with High Honors and election to The Order of the Coif, and a B.A. from Louisiana State University, summa cum laude, with election to Phi Beta Kappa.  He is a frequent speaker on intellectual property for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the International Trademark Association, and various universities and organizations.