William F. Patry (born January 1, 1950, in Niskayuna, New York) is an American lawyer specializing in copyright law.

[2] Patry also worked as a policy planning advisor to the Register of Copyrights, and held a post as Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

On August 1, 2008, Patry announced the termination of his blog, giving as reasons both the unwillingness of too many people to treat it as the personal blog that it was and the sad state of copyright law.

[4] In 2009 he published Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars,[5] and temporarily resumed blogging in support of the book.

As of 2024 he is a partner in the intellectual property practice of the Mayer Brown firm in New York City.