Richard Abramson

With more than 30 years of legal and business experience, Richard Abramson manages all of SRI’s legal affairs, its contracts and procurement organizations, its intellectual property office, the office of Corporate Secretary, and other duties in support of SRI’s research, development and commercialization activities.     

Prior to joining SRI in 2001, Abramson was Senior Director of Litigation and Intellectual Property for Immersion Corporation in San Jose. From 1992 to 1999, he was a partner in Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe’s Intellectual Property Litigation Group in Palo Alto, California.  From 1984-1991, Abramson was a litigation associate and partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella, where he also specialized in technology-based intellectual property litigation.

Abramson served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall) from 1999-2001, where he taught a course in patent litigation.  Since 1998, he has also served as a court-appointed mediator for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Abramson graduated magna cum laude from Claremont McKenna College in 1978.  He received his J.D. from Boalt Hall, where he was Senior Articles Editor of the California Law Review, in 1981. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the late Hon. William H. Orrick, United States District Court for the Northern District of California.