Mickey Krieger was a friend and mentor who served as Of Counsel to this firm on trademark matters for several years. He died on October 25th after a battle with esophageal cancer. His death came less than three weeks after Raun Burnham, who worked for many years with the firm as a trademark paralegal, lost her battle with neuroendocrine cancer.

Mickey was a true Renaissance Man which, according to Brittanica, is derived from the Renaissance ideal that “a man can do all things if he will” and, thus, “the gifted men of the Renaissance sought to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, in physical development, in social accomplishments, and in the arts.”

He held degrees in mathematics from Caltech (B.S.) and UCLA (Ph.D.) and spent ten years on the UCLA and MIT computer science and mathematics faculties, after which he was an intern/scholar for information policy at the National Telecommunications and Information Agency. Mickey then turned to law, receiving his J.D. from UCLA and then teaching Computer Science in Brazil as a visiting Fulbright Scholar.

Mickey had an accomplished legal career with a practice devoted to high-technology business issues, especially for software, multimedia and Internet-related development, acquisition, licensing, distribution, and services and trademarks where his clients included an Oscar-winning actress. He also assisted in programs related to intellectual property for government entities including the U.S. Commerce Department and the Brazil/UN Software Export project. For many years Mickey remained actively connected with the UCLA Computer Science Department, where he founded and led two innovative graduate seminar series “Entrepreneurship: Technology Business Fundamentals” and “Entrepreneurship and E-Commerce.”

At the same time, Mickey remained actively connected with the UCLA Computer Science Department, where he founded and led two innovative graduate seminar series “Entrepreneurship: Technology Business Fundamentals” and “Entrepreneurship and E-Commerce.” He also was part of the Advisory Boards of the Caltech Enterprise Forum and the Los Angeles Business Technology Center.

Over a beer, Mickey could regale you with stories about Richard Feynman, history, politics, the city he loved, Caltech’s famous pranks or about how he crafted an argument to convince a trademark examiner to approve his client’s trademark.

He was a devoted alumni of both UCLA and CalTech and I was glad to accompany him to national security roundtables at UCLA and a number of events at CalTech, including its Enterprise Forum and a screening of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” celebrating the 100th anniversary of legendary director Frank Capra’s graduation from CalTech that featured his son, actor Jimmy Hawkins, who played Little Tommy in the film and a critic.

Mickey’s younger brother, Jerold Krieger was a Superior Court judge and pioneer for gay rights before dying of cancer in 2002.

Post Script March 2025

Mickey’s December 2024 Memorial Service was a great testament to him, as there were many tributes from those who had known him since elementary school. In addition to lawyers, there also were a many academics in mathematics and computer science, including internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock.

The service triggered a discussion of the Erdős number, which is a mathematical version of degrees of separation centered on famed mathematician Paul Erdős who collaborated on one-third of his roughly 1,500 papers. His co-authors would have an Erdős number of 2, those collaborating with a co-author would have a number of 3 etc.

Erdős Number:	2	3	4	5
	Albert Einstein	Enrico Fermi Richard Feynman John Nash	Judge Richard Posner	Angela Merkel German Chancellor

It was a testament to Mickey’s mathematical genius and modesty that few people knew Mickey was a 1.

Finally, in March 2025, I was asked to present a tribute Mickey at the IP Section’s IP Institute before a number of his former colleagues. I closed with a quote from Richard Feynman that embodied Mickey’s spirit (the fuller version is below):

Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do.

Richard P. Feynman from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character).