Judge Kara Farnandez Stoll was appointed by President Barack H. Obama in July 2015. Prior to her appointment, Judge Stoll practiced law for seventeen years with the firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and Dunner, LLP, where she specialized in patent litigation.

Judge Stoll served as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University Law School in 2019, at George Mason University School of Law from 2008 to 2015, and at Howard University School of Law from 2004 to 2008. From 1997 to 1998, she clerked for the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Judge Stoll worked at the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 1991 to 1997 as a patent examiner, at the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, and in the Solicitor’s Office.

She received a J.D. from Georgetown University School of Law in 1997 and a B.S.E.E. from Michigan State University in 1991.