Rate My Professor Greg Vetter

Greg Vetter serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and HIPLA College Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, positions he has held since 2017 and earlier, respectively. He joined the faculty in 2002 following a clerkship with the Honorable Arthur J. Gajarsa on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and two years of practice at Kilpatrick Stockton. Prior to law school, Vetter worked nine years full-time in the software industry, including as Director of Marketing and Product Manager at Control Systems International, overseeing software design, development, marketing, customer support, and licensing matters. His academic credentials include a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology (1987), M.S. in Computer Science from University of Missouri-Kansas City (1991), M.B.A. from Rockhurst University (1994), all summa cum laude via evening programs while working full-time, and J.D. magna cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law (1999), where he was Order of the Coif, top 2% of class, Associate Articles Editor of the Law Review, and recipient of the Lowden-Wigmore Second Prize for Legal Scholarship.

Professor Vetter is a leading expert on intellectual property law as applied to software, with emphasis on free and open source software licensing at the intersection of software business, patent law, copyright law, and licensing law. He co-directs the Law Center's Institute for Intellectual Property and Information Law, has taught courses such as Patents, Licensing, Trademark Law, Intellectual Property Survey, Digital Transactions, and Internet Law, and served as visiting professor at University of Texas at Austin School of Law (2006-2007), University of Washington School of Law (2010), and Texas A&M University School of Law (2015). His scholarship comprises over two dozen articles, including 'The Collaborative Integrity of Open-Source Software' (Utah L. Rev. 2004), 'Infectious Open Source Software: Spreading Incentives or Promoting Resistance' (Rutgers L.J. 2004), 'Commercial Free and Open Source Software: Knowledge Production, Hybrid Appropriability, and Patents' (Fordham L. Rev. 2009), and contributions to intellectual property casebooks. Vetter has delivered nearly ninety presentations, chaired committees, served as AALS section chair, and received University of Houston research grants for projects on prior user rights and open source software implications.