Senior Counsel - Trademark

About the Team

OpenAI's Legal team plays a crucial role in furthering OpenAI's mission by tackling innovative, fundamental legal issues in AI. If you're passionate about doing significant and unique work as a technology lawyer, this team is for you. The team comprises legal professionals from diverse fields, including technology, privacy, IP, corporate, cybersecurity, employment, tax, regulatory, and litigation.

About the Role

We’re growing our IP team and seek an experienced attorney to lead OpenAI’s global trademark litigation and disputes strategy, and oversee our broader trademark and brand protection practice. You will lead complex, high-stakes trademark litigation and enforcement matters around the world, develop strategies to protect OpenAI’s brands in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, and provide practical, business-oriented advice on novel trademark and brand-related issues. This role is highly cross-functional across OpenAI, including work across our Legal, Communications, Global Affairs, Marketing, Product and Executive teams

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Lead global trademark litigation and disputes, including complex infringement, unfair competition, dilution, and other brand-related litigation, from initial assessment through resolution.

• Develop and execute global trademark litigation and enforcement strategies, including managing outside counsel, directing litigation strategy, assessing risk, and advising senior leadership on significant disputes.

• Lead and develop OpenAI’s trademark team, overseeing attorneys and legal professionals responsible for trademark clearance, prosecution, portfolio management, enforcement, dispute resolution, brand protection, and marketing counseling.

• Stay current on relevant laws, regulations, and industry trends, and provide updates and legal guidance to company leadership and stakeholders.

• Build scalable processes and frameworks for trademark risk assessment, enforcement prioritization, outside counsel management, and cross-functional decision-making.

• Provide clear, practical, and strategic advice to senior leadership, balancing legal risks, commercial priorities, reputational considerations, and long-term brand protection.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 10+ years of leading complex trademark litigation and disputes, including significant responsibility for litigation strategy, case management, and resolution, including substantial experience at technology companies and law firms.

• Have personally developed and executed strategies for complex, high-stakes trademark litigation and disputes, leading matters from initial assessment through resolution, including direct engagement with opposing counsel and other key stakeholders.

• Have experience developing and executing global trademark portfolio strategies, including clearance, prosecution, enforcement, and brand protection, aligned with business priorities and growth.

• Communicate complex legal and business issues clearly, exercise sound judgment in navigating legal uncertainty, and provide practical, strategic recommendations under pressure.

• Work effectively with cross-functional teams, legal operations, outside counsel, and senior stakeholders while managing multiple urgent matters.

• Bring intellectual curiosity, sound judgment, a strong sense of ownership, and a willingness to challenge assumptions respectfully and learn from feedback.

• Have a JD and a license or qualification to practice in California.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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