Henry C. Dinger P.C.

Henry Dinger is a retired partner and has served as Deputy General Counsel, and Chair of Goodwin's Ethics Advisory Committee. Henry, who joined Goodwin in 1978, focused on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret litigation and advised clients concerning a range of intellectual property issues. He concentrated on patent issues in the pharmaceutical industry and on the representation of clients in appellate matters involving patent law, federal jurisdictional issues and First Amendment claims.

Henry chaired Goodwin's Ethics Advisory Committee and served as the firm's Risk Management Partner. He advised Goodwin colleagues and other firms concerning their obligations under the rules of professional conduct, conflict of interest statutes and laws governing the conduct of lobbyists. 

He remains Counsel to the Firm, supporting the Firm’s General Counsel’s office.  

Henry has represented numerous clients in intellectual property and constitutional law matters, including Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Walgreens, J. Baker, Norton Company, Codex Corporation, Walt Disney, MCA Records, Volkswagen AG, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Van Wagner Communications. Much of his practice in recent years has involved the representation of clients in appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and other federal circuit courts. Among the cases that Henry has successfully argued are:

• Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., establishing new Federal Circuit rule governing subject matter jurisdiction over declaratory judgment actions
• Warner-Lambert Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., reinstating non-enablement defense rejected on summary judgment
• Walgreen Co. v. Rullan, invalidating on commerce clause grounds statute requiring licensure for new retail pharmacies
• Stark v. Advanced Magnetics, Inc., reinstating claim for correction of inventorship on issued patent
• Volkswagenwerk AG v. Wheeler, restricting use of automobile manufacturer trademarks by independent service companies
• In litigation on behalf of a major consumer product manufacturer, invalidated on takings clause ground a statute requiring public disclosure of trade secret ingredients

Henry has also represented clients as amici curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court and in various federal circuit courts.

Henry is a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct (past chair). He is a past member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and the American, Massachusetts, and Boston Bar Associations.

Henry has a long-standing interest in education reform. He currently chairs the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, a business advocacy group that played a central part in drafting and advocating for the landmark Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 - a law that established a national model for standards-based education reform. For many years, Henry represented the Boston Public Schools in connection with the system's long desegregation process.

While at Harvard Law School, Henry served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Law Review.