Gary Shuster wrote his first lines of code in seventh grade, rewriting pieces of the Apple II's own operating system in 6502 assembly before he'd heard the words "intellectual property." The law came later. The itch to take things apart came first.

He graduated from UCLA summa cum laude, in sociology — a degree that, ironically, blocked him from sitting for the U.S. Patent Bar, which wants a science or engineering background instead. Law school pointed him toward public-interest work; the job market of the time didn't cooperate. He ended up doing commercial litigation at a New York firm's Los Angeles office instead.

Then came Starsight v. Gemstar, a patent case that resolved the way big patent fights often do: in a merger. It was enough to show him what he'd been missing.

Shuster went on to earn his law degree from Harvard, magna cum laude, and is now inventor of record on more than 250 issued U.S. patents. He's Senior Counsel at Coleman & Horowitt, and co-founded DeepLaw LLP with his Harvard Law classmate Cameron Powell — built around the same instinct: work as inventive as the clients it serves.

Innovation Cafe® is where he talks through the ideas that don't fit in a billable hour — patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and the occasional detour into neurodiversity and creativity. Every article on this site started as one of his conversations.

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