Dennis S. Karjala

1939 - 2017

Karjala, Dennis S.
Dennis S. Karjala was born in New York City, NY, on December 19, 1939, to Dr. Steve Arthur Karjala and Sylvia Gertrude Taitch. Dennis attended Evanston Township High School for two years and graduated from Bellaire High School in Texas. He graduated from Princeton University in 1961 with a B.S. degree in Engineering/Physics; cum laude. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana for his post graduate work, earning a MS and Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1963 and 1965 respectively. He taught Electrical Engineering at American University in Okinawa for several years. He returned to the United States and earned a J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. While attending Berkeley, he was the Editor in Chief of the University of California Law Review (1971-1972). He practiced law at the firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen in San Francisco, upon completion of his Berkeley studies. In 1978, Dennis joined the faculty of Arizona State University as a Professor of Law. He stayed there for 39 years until his death. In 2001, Dennis was designated a Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar, and in 2002 he was appointed to the college's first endowed chair, the Jack E. Brown Professor of Law. Dennis was also a Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science, and Innovation. Dennis Karjala's work in intellectual property, specifically copyright law, is internationally recognized and complemented by his facility in written and spoken Japanese. Dennis taught courses in property law, copyright, patent law, international intellectual property, and intellectual property in cyberspace. Dennis was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, a Fulbright Teaching Fellow at the University of Hokkaido, and a Japan Foundation Fellow at the University of Tokyo. He has held visiting professorships at numerous institutions, including the University of Minnesota Law School, Washington University School of Law, and UCLA School of Law. Dennis died following complications resulting from treatment for cancer. He is survived by his daughter, Sylvia, his brother Lawrence, his sisters, Katherine and Lynn, his stepdaughter Barbora Hladek, his stepson Matus Mrocek, and his former wife Katarina Karjala. A memorial service will be announced at a future date.