John Whelan is a partner in the Corporate Department and heads up the IP & Technology Group at A&L Goodbody, with a focus on the areas of intellectual property, information technology, telecoms and commercial contracts. John is a member of our Inward Investment Group, and co-heads our Silicon Valley representative office, through which the Firm engages with our US West Coast based clients and law firm intermediaries. Before returning to A&L Goodbody as a Partner in 2003, John worked for a number of years with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London and Hong Kong.

John regularly advises international companies on their operations in Ireland. He has been involved in some the largest commercial transactions in the technology and telecoms sector to date, and on the contentious side has acted in many IP cases before the Commercial Court, including most of the patent cases over the past 10 years.

He is recommended in international legal directories including PLC Which Lawyer?, Chambers Europe, The Legal 500, European Legal Experts, The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers and Who's Who Legal. Comments include: John Whelan is "an impressive operator and tactical litigator” and “was able to find new approaches to problems that we had not been able to solve elsewhere” (Chambers Europe 2011); "The highly regarded John Whelan heads the A&L Goodbody team..." who are “a brilliant team of people with a hands-on, dedicated approach” (Legal 500 2011); "Peers admire John Whelan for his experience and broad-ranging expertise..." (Chambers Europe 2012).

John has spoken at conferences on topics in his areas of specialisation in Dublin, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, Beijing, Bangkok and New York (at the IDA's North American Conference), and on the UK’s Legal Television Network. He is a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) trained Arbitrator and has a Masters of Commercial Law (LLM) from University College Dublin. John lectures in a Law Society diploma course on the topic of Commercial Contracts. He serves as a member of the Irish Government's International Content Services Centre taskforce, and was a member of the International Traded Services sub-committee of the Government's Enterprise Strategy Group.

Ireland IP & Technology Law Blog

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A&L Goodbody is an Irish law firm providing expert legal advice across every aspect of business law. The Firm advises a broad domestic and international client base in both the private and public sectors, across the island of Ireland.