Ian McClure

Innovation Subcommittee Chair

Ian McClure is the Associate Vice President for Research (AVPR), Innovation and Economic Impact and Executive Director, UK Innovate at the University of Kentucky (UK). He leads efforts to translate UK discoveries for the public good, seek equitable returns on UK intellectual property, establish innovative approaches to develop, fund and support opportunities for near-stage research, enhance UK’s investments in innovation, catalyze a culture and capacity for entrepreneurship, and expand industry and other collaborative research partnerships with UK Research and in Kentucky more broadly.

McClure provides oversight of UK Innovate, which includes the University of Kentucky Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) with a new focus on social innovation, UK Innovation Connect for industry partnerships, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training. He is the Chair of AUTM, a board member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship (NACIE), an advisory board member for the Oak Ridge Innovation Institute and Launch Blue, and a member of the board of directors for Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC). He is a co-founder of Kentucky Commercialization Ventures (KCV), the state-funded and KSTC-managed program providing IP and tech transfer services to all other universities in the state that do not currently have dedicated IP and tech transfer resources. McClure is a PI or Co-I on three federal grants (NIH, NIGMS and EDA) focused on tech-based economic development.

McClure began his career as a Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) and Intellectual Property (IP) transactions attorney at Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, L.L.P. in Louisville. Following private practice, he helped build a startup company in Chicago, IPXI, the world’s first financial exchange for IP and technology rights. He led it through product development, a capital raise, proof of concept, and growth to 30+ full-time employees and three offices. McClure was Vice President of IP Strategy for Black Stone IP (acquired by Houlihan Lokey), a boutique investment bank headquartered in San Francisco focused on IP-rich M&A and technology-driven transactions. In parallel, he teaches graduate courses on the Law & Business of IP Management at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the University of Kentucky College of Law. McClure has been named one of the World’s Leading IP Strategists by IAM Magazine every year since 2012. 

McClure has published extensively in law and business journals related to the intersection of IP, business process, and corporate governance, including with top IP & Technology law reviews such as UC Berkeley, Fordham University, and Santa Clara University. In addition, he has presented to numerous symposiums and conferences on IP licensing, valuation, risk, and strategy. McClure graduated cum laude with a degree in economics from Vanderbilt University, magna cum laude with a Juris Doctorate from Chapman University School of Law, and a Master of Laws in Intellectual Property Law (LLM) from DePaul University College of Law.