McCarthy is a Senior Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he has taught for over thirty-five years. He is the Founding Director of the McCarthy Institute for Intellectual Property and Technology Law, located at the University of San Francisco. He has practiced, written and taught in the field of trademarks and unfair competition and is a frequent speaker on the subject. He is a member of the California and the U.S. Supreme Court Bars and is admitted to practice before the Patent and Trademark Office.

He is of counsel with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster. He was a member of the A.L.I. Advisory Committee involved in drafting the 1995 Restatement of the Law of Unfair Competition, was a member of the Trademark Review Commission that drafted the 1989 revisions to the Lanham Act, and has served for several years on the Editorial Board of The Trademark Reporter.

Professor McCarthy is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including most recently the 2003 International Trademark Association’s President’s Award and the 2000 Pattishall Medal for excellence in teaching trademark law from the Brand Names Education Foundation.