Born in Zurich in 1958, Reto M. Hilty studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich and law at the University of Zurich , where he received his doctorate in 1989. He then worked as a law clerk before joining the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Berne, where he was a division head and member of the executive board from 1994 to 1997. In 2000, he completed his habilitation at the University of Zurich in Civil, Intellectual Property, Competition and Media Law. From 2000 to 2001, he was full Professor of Technology and Information Law at ETH Zurich. In 2002, he was appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (until 2024) and Professor ad personam at the University of Zurich (until 2023); he still holds an honorary professorship at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and at various foreign universities.

Reto M. Hilty is an honorary professor at the Center for Studies of Intellectual Property Rights at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Wuhan, China), at Xiamen University (Xiamen, China), at Tongji University (Shanghai, China), and at Zhongyuan University of Technology (Zhengzhou, China). In 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Buenos Aires.