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Franklin Pierce honors founder and pioneer in legal education

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It is with profound sadness that Franklin Pierce Law Center notes the passing of Dr. Robert H. Rines, Esq, founder of Pierce Law and a pioneer in United States patent law and education for more than 50 years.

“Bob Rines was a true visionary in a field of endeavor, law, in which visionaries are in short supply. Lawyers tend to look back for guidance to things like precedent and legislative history. Bob always looked ahead. He steered by the stars, not by the wake. His way of addressing the ills he saw in how patent law was legislated, practiced and adjudicated was to create a law school that would train lawyers to do it right. By force of personality and perseverance, he succeeded.  Thousands of lawyers and their inventor clients owe him a great debt of gratitude,” said Dean John D. Hutson.

Professor William O. Hennessey added, “Rines’ impact on U.S. patent law in the post-war era has been truly unique. He represented many of the most important American inventors of the 20th Century, including a number of MIT professors. He was a vocal advocate–-in the bar, Congress, the courts, and the law schools–-for greater recognition of the critical role invention and innovation play in the American economy, and championed the rights of the inventors who have made and continue to make America the most innovative society on earth. He was also a visionary in predicting as early as the 1960s the transformative technological challenges that would face the United States from Asia, and particularly China, long before anyone else.”

Born in 1922 in Boston, Mass., Rines earned a BS in physics in 1942 from MIT. He joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II as a radar officer, served in both Europe and the Pacific, and invented the modulations technique essential in building the Army’s then top-secret Microwave Early Warning System. After the War, Rines worked as an examiner for the U.S. Patent Office while earning his law degree from Georgetown University in 1947. He later joined his father’s law practice in Boston where he also taught at MIT. He completed his PhD thesis at Chiao Tung University, Taiwan in 1972.

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