Member Spotlight – Bruce Wu

Bruce is a Director of Global IP at Illumina, a San Diego-based biotech company creating solutions for genetic research. He began his legal career at Foley & Lardner in Washington, DC, before transitioning to in-house counsel roles at HP and now at Illumina. At MIT, Bruce earned his master’s and Ph.D. in two different engineering fields, and he later received a law degree from Georgetown and taught IP law as an adjunct professor at George Mason University.

Over the course of his career, Bruce has helped companies around the world tailor the procurement and management of IP to their commercial activities, including strategically expediting grants of patents worldwide and deploying aspects of IP beyond patents to maximize the protection of the company’s global IP. A speaker of five languages, Bruce sees the role of in-house counsel as a kind of interpreter, building bridges between the distinct languages and thought processes of executives and scientists. To that end, he believes that the most important skill an IP attorney can have is intellectual curiosity, which opens the door to creative solutions, and this philosophy guides his approach to team leadership. In his spare time, Bruce enjoys turning his kitchen into a culinary laboratory alongside his two young children.