Christopher C. Van Barr

About Christopher C. Van Barr

Christopher Van Barr is an Ottawa partner at Gowling WLG who fights intellectual property cases, patent infringement disputes above all, for clients in the pharmaceutical and technology sectors. Bayer, Regeneron, OpenAI, Google and Takeda have all relied on Chris, and so has Canada's National Research Council. Chris takes the first chair at trial and on appeal, with appearances in the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Ontario courts up to the Court of Appeal, and has led the firm's Intellectual Property Litigation and Strategy Group.

Chris has been with Gowling WLG since 1996, the same year of the Ontario call to the bar, which followed an LLB from the University of Western Ontario in 1994. Registration as a patent agent came in 2000. For eight years Chris also taught at the University of Ottawa as an adjunct professor, covering patent and trade secret law, Advanced Patent Law among the courses. Chris has also sat as a trustee on the firm's national board.

The Intellectual Property Institute of Canada presented Chris with its Peter W. McBurney Memorial Award for Professional Excellence in October 2025, pointing to the Galderma appeal, a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that settled the reach of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board's jurisdiction. Chris also spent many years on the Federal Court Judges' IP Users' Committee, is a past chair of the Canadian Bar Association's Court Practice Committee, and gives papers at conferences run by groups such as IPIC, the Canadian Institute and Infonex.

Music is close to home. Chris's spouse and children are skilled musicians and music teachers, and since November 2023 Chris has served as a director of OrKidstra, a charity that brings music to kids in underserved communities. Having seen how music lessons can change young lives, Chris joined the board eager to help the program reach more of them.