Recognized in Best Lawyers since 2027 Tom Dunlap is a founding partner of Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, a veteran-owned law firm with more than 75 attorneys nationwide. He is a former Army officer and special prosecutor who has tried cases to verdict in state and federal court, including a $31 million patent jury verdict in the Eastern District of Texas, and has handled six appeals in the Federal Circuit. His practice is government contracts and intellectual property, chiefly trademarks and patents. He is lead counsel on the firm's outside IP counsel contracts with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Commonwealth of Virginia, and he leads the firm's AI practice.
Tom holds a JD, an MBA, and an MS in biotechnology. He founded Ceres Nanosciences, ran it as CEO, and is a named inventor on the patents behind its COVID testing products. He wrote Practical AI for Lawyers (2026) and the intellectual property chapter of the Virginia Lawyer's Deskbook, and he teaches IP as an adjunct at Washington & Lee University and Lafayette College. The WTR 1000 lists him among the world's leading trademark lawyers. He has been a Virginia Super Lawyer every year since 2014.
Outside the office he is a PADI Master Diver, an instrument-rated pilot, a saber fencer, and a former silver medalist in Burmese national kickboxing.
Personal Narrative
Tom Dunlap is a founding partner of DBL. His practice is intellectual property and government contracts, both the transactions and the disputes that follow them. He has tried and won jury trials in state and federal court, along with preliminary injunctions, summary judgment motions, and bid protests. The verdicts include a $31 million patent jury verdict in the Eastern District of Texas, affirmed in a precedential Federal Circuit opinion, and a $2.6 million counterclaim jury verdict in Loudoun County. On appeal he has handled six Federal Circuit cases and three matters before the United States Supreme Court. The WTR 1000 (2024) named him one of the world's leading trademark lawyers.
Tom is lead attorney on the firm's contract as outside intellectual property counsel to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, awarded through NIH's Office of General Counsel for 2019 to 2023 and re-awarded for 2024 to 2028. That work has run to hundreds of matters. One of them was securing the CDC's trademarks for its vaccination cards during the COVID pandemic. He is also lead counsel on the firm's contract as outside intellectual property counsel to the Commonwealth of Virginia, awarded in 2025.
He leads DBL's AI practice. His book, Practical AI for Lawyers, was published in September 2026, and he founded Lexicaliti AI, which trains lawyers and businesses on practical use of AI tools. He serves at the Co-Chair of the AI Advisory Board of the Alliott Global Alliance.
Tom has written and taught courses for students, lawyers, and businesses for 25 years. They include Essentials of Intellectual Property Litigation (2025), Ethical Use of AI in the Practice of Law (2025), Essentials of Intellectual Property (Virginia CLE, 2020 and 2024 editions), Essentials of Intellectual Property Litigation and Disputes (Virginia CLE, 2021 and 2025 editions), Determining Damages in Patent Infringement Cases (2017), Patent Damages: The Rise of the Footprint Approach in Patent Litigation (2016), and Chapter 8, Intellectual Property, of the Virginia Lawyer's Deskbook (2024 edition). He has been the primary instructor for Virginia CLE's intellectual property programming for more than a decade.
He is an adjunct professor at Washington & Lee University, where he teaches the Intellectual Property Litigation practicum, and at Lafayette College's School of Engineering, where he teaches Intellectual Property for Scientists & Engineers. He has guest lectured at George Washington University and other schools, and he served on the undergraduate advisory board of W&L's Entrepreneurship Program.
Tom holds a JD, an MBA, and an MS in biotechnology. He served as an Army officer in Armor and Cavalry, including a tour as aide-de-camp to the Commanding General of the 29th Infantry Division, and later as a special prosecutor in Loudoun County. He has co-chaired the ABA's Copyright CLE subcommittee and is a past president and former board member of the Loudoun County Bar Association.
Tom founded Ceres Nanosciences, Inc. (ceresnano.com), a biotechnology company, and served as its CEO from 2007 to 2010 and its Chairman from 2010 to 2017. He raised the company's first $4.5 million and saw it through a $9 million A round (Greybird Ventures) and a $12 million B round. Ceres has received more than $20 million in grants from DARPA, NIH, the Gates Foundation, and the Governor of Virginia for tests for Ebola, malaria, and Zika. Its main commercial products are an NIH-funded COVID reagent ($6 million grant), a COVID wastewater detection suite ($8 million grant), a Lyme disease diagnostic, and a research discovery toolkit sold mainly with Shimadzu mass spectrometers. Those products rest on patents, and Tom is one of the original inventors (US 9,383,299 B2 among them). He holds other patents in unrelated fields.
Super Lawyers has listed Tom for intellectual property in Virginia and Washington, DC every year from 2014 through 2024. Outside the practice he is a PADI Master Diver, an instrument-rated pilot with high-performance and complex aircraft endorsements, a saber fencer, and a former silver medalist in Burmese national kickboxing. He is a life member of Mensa and belongs to the American Legion, the Leesburg VFW, and Masonic Lodge #114 [CHECK: which of these are life memberships, and the lodge's proper name]. He runs a marathon and a triathlon most years. He served seven years as a commissioner of Leesburg Executive Airport (KYO)
Best Lawyers has recognized Thomas Dunlap since 2027. The Best Lawyers recognition is based on a peer-review survey of lawyers in the same geographic region and legal practice area. The recognition reflects the professional regard in which Thomas Dunlap is held by other lawyers.
