Binns, Micheal

Micheal Binns is Head of Patents & Trade Secrets and a Director and Associate General Counsel on the Patent, Licensing and Open Source team at Meta, formerly Facebook. As a registered patent attorney, Mike’s helped protect global copyrights and trademarks in addition to patent rights for a wide range of industries. At present, he advises on global IP portfolio strategy and risk mitigation related the future of AI, social networking, AR/VR/MR, and the metaverse. Micheal has and continues to protect the knowledge, systems, and inventions that are business-critical drivers of revenue.

Micheal chairs Meta’s Black@Legal affinity group, which focuses on ensuring an equitable experience for diverse employees in the legal department. Within the legal profession, he is a founder and board member of ADAPT.legal, a DEI collective; a board member on the National Council on Patent Practicum and founder of the Patent Pipeline Program; and a trustee on the Foundation for Advancement of Diversity in IP Law.

Micheal is also actively involved in his community and sits on the board of three non-profits. He is the board chair of Page Turners Make Great Learners in Atlanta, which is focused on providing books to low-income students in order to foster a love of reading and a board member with the Georgia Wildlife Federation, focusing on the intelligent management of the life sustaining resources of the earth. He is also an advisor for Spruill Center for the Arts; The Mom Project; and TiE Access Atlanta. 

Before joining Meta, Micheal was the Atlanta Office Development Partner at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP, where his experience included the litigation, counseling, and prosecution of all forms of intellectual property related to a variety of industries and technologies. He was also the chair of the Pro Bono Committee and a co-chair and founder of the Racial Justice Task Force of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee.