Practical LawConferences

Graham is a patent litigation specialist. He advises clients operating in a wide range of sectors including electronics, biotechnology, medical devices, chemicals and energy. He is a solicitor advocate and has acted as junior counsel at trial in the Patents Court and in the Court of Appeal. He frequently acts in multi-jurisdictional disputes. He is one of the few UK practitioners with first-hand experience of running patent litigation in China.

Graham is currently listed or ranked in the leading legal directories including Legal 500, IAM Patent 1000, MIP and Who’s Who Legal.

Simon MacLennan is a UK and European qualified Intellectual Property lawyer.   He studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University (specialising in Materials Science) and Law at the College of Law in London.  He worked for Sky plc between 2001 and 2014. He joined as Sky’s first dedicated IP lawyer and became Group Head of IP in 2012. He was responsible for Sky’s IP group and managed a wide range of issues, with particular focuses on brand and technology related IP. The work handled ranged from restructurings, licensing and contract advice, through trade mark and patent oppositions, to court litigation in various countries.  He managed directly the team supporting Sky’s UK/Irish business and had supervisory responsibility for Sky’s international IP functions in Zug, Switzerland. He was a member of Sky’s Leadership Group.

Since December 2013, Dominic Hornblow has been the Head of Legal and procurement at AstraZeneca’s UK Marketing Company. He provides legal and commercial advice and guidance on all of the legal issues facing the company, including commercial contracts, IP licensing, litigation (including patent litigation), competition law and other regulatory issues. Before joining AstraZeneca, Dominic spent 10 years working in the IP and commercial departments of the London office of Jones Day where his practice focused on assisting clients with issues where technology, intellectual property, information, or services were involved. He worked with businesses in many sectors and industries, including software, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and electronics. He also worked on a number of very large outsourcing transactions including one of the largest ever offshore IT outsourcings from the U.K. to India.

Kathy Osgerby is an Associate in Arnold & Porter (UK) LLP’s London office. Kathy advises clients on contentious intellectual property matters, with a particular focus on patent disputes. Kathy has experience of patent actions in the Patents Court and opposition proceedings at the European Patent Office, and of coordinating patent litigation in multiple jurisdictions across Europe.

James Cross is a UK and European Patent Attorney and Patent Attorney Litigator with over 20 years experience in patent prosecution and litigation, and has been a partner at Jenkins since 1998. His practice focuses on blue chip UK-based clients, advising on worldwide patent protection, portfolio management and enforcement for key inventions; examples include the BA First and Club World Seats, Sky set-top boxes and remotes, and the cordless kettle. James was recognised as a leading patent attorney in Chambers 2014 and 2015, with clients citing his business acumen and ability to work as an integral part of their company.

Katie joined Hogan Lovells in 2003, and is a Counsel in the London IP, Media and Technology (IPMT) practice and a member of the firms Life Sciences and Electronics teams. Katie’s focus is on patent litigation in the telecommunications and pharmaceutical sectors, with specialist focus on cross-border patent disputes (including acting in Qualcomm v Nokia, IPCom v HTC, ZTE v Ericsson, and Nokia v HTC), patent arbitration (including in relation to disputes over licence fees for standards essential patents, and related licence terms), and supplementary protection certificates including paediatric extensions (including acting for DuPont in the first UK cases challenging the interpretation of European legislation regarding paediatric extensions to supplementary protection certificates, and acting for Merck Sharp & Dohme Ltd. in a case before the English courts and CJEU on the interpretation of the Specific Mechanism).

Katie also advises on a range of non-contentious and pre-litigation IP matters including review and selection of suitable candidate patents for assertion in licensing negotiations and patent litigation, and drafting and negotiating of licensing, settlement, and other commercial agreements.

Sharaz is currently founder and managing director of Skepsis Telecom, a strawman patent invalidation company.   His work is involves analysis of patent portfolios and preparing invalidity cases against individual patents.

Prior to founding Skepsis, Sharaz spent five years as head of HTC’s patent litigation and licensing functions for the EMEA region.   In this role, he supervised HTC’s European patent litigation, defending HTC against patent infringement actions across the European Union against companies such as IPCom, Apple and Nokia.  As head of licensing, Sharaz negotiated HTC’s essential and non-essential patent licences with all of the major telecoms patent owners, and therefore has a deep understanding of the global patent licensing space.

Before joining HTC, Sharaz was employed as European Patent Counsel at Qualcomm, where he supervised multi-jurisdictional patent cases, most notably, Qualcomm’s Europe-wide patent infringement actions against Nokia.

Sharaz has been directly involved in most of the major battles of the so-called ‘mobile phone wars’, including Qualcomm v Nokia,  IPCom v HTC, Apple v HTC, Nokia v HTC and HTC v Gemalto which involved patent litigation spanning the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands.  He is therefore well-qualified to opine on the subject of enforcement and strategy.

David Rose is head of the Intellectual Property Group and Co-Chair of the Life Sciences & Healthcare Group at King & Wood Mallesons LLP in London.  He represents many leading intellectual property owners notably in the pharmaceutical, TMT and financial services industries.  David routinely advises on issues relating to infringement / validity of patents and SPCs, together with advice on patent and SPC protection, ownership disputes, experimental use and the undertaking of experiments for regulatory purposes.  Many of the cases that David has advised upon are part of multi-jurisdictional disputes.

David has acted in a number of high profile patent disputes including Warner-Lambert v Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, HTC v. Gemalto, ratiopharm v. Alza, Leo Pharma v. Sandoz, Arrow Generics v. Merck, Cairnstores v. Astra Zeneca and SKB v. Generics UK.

David is recommended as a leading patent and life sciences lawyer in Legal 500, Chambers, IAM Patent 1000, MIP, Who’s Who Legal and LMG Life Sciences Europe.

Fiona is Mylan’s former Vice President and Director of IP and is based in London. Fiona graduated in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University before going on to do a PhD at the Medical Research Council, UK and then a post-doc at Harvard Medical School USA. She started her career as a patent attorney at SmithKline Beecham (later GlaxoSmithKline) qualifying and working as a UK and European patent attorney, handling mainly biological and chemical subject matter. She spent two years in private practice before joining Teva and then Mylan. Fiona is also qualified as a UK patent attorney litigator and has substantial experience of UK High Court Litigation and litigation in other jurisdictions. She teaches the JDD foreign law course for the UK Patent Examinations and is a regular speaker at conferences.

Donal is the Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services. The company offers consultancy in the areas of innovation and intellectual property management. It helps clients to appreciate their intellectual capital, assets and property, and to ensure that they manage these intangibles efficiently and effectively.

Donal graduated from NIHE Limerick (now The University of Limerick) in Ireland in ’85, with a Degree in Electronic Engineering. Donal was formerly a VP of R&D and a Director of IP at Nokia. Donal had a long career at Nokia for 21 years and has wide and varied experience in the wireless telecoms industry, having worked for periods in The Netherlands, UK, USA, Finland, and HK.

Donal is an Adjunct Professor at Imperial College Business School in London, and teaches about ‘IP management’. Donal has also written a large number of papers on various aspects of innovation and IP which have been published in a number of magazines, websites and blogs around the world.

Since 2013, Donal has been included in the IAM 300 (the world’s leading IP Strategists) an annual listing of those individuals identified as offering operating companies and other IP owners world-class advice on maximising the value of their intellectual property.

Donal is also involved with a number of innovative and creative start-up companies, for example Industry Advisor at Brandstrike, an on-line brand protection services and technology company and Chairman at Deltasight, a big data company ‘joining the dots between business, technology, people and IP data.

Together with some associates, Donal also coaches and mentors a number of start-up companies on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Peter Thorniley is a Chartered and European Patent attorney specialising in IT and electronics.  Having obtained his master’s degree in Physics from the University of Oxford, during which he modelled the formation of our universe in crude Fortran code, he joined the patent profession in 2004.  Since that time Peter has specialised in the prosecution and management of patent portfolios across a wide range of technologies, but with a particular focus on computer implemented inventions.  He has extensive experience of representing clients before the UKIPO and the EPO  and has coordinated prosecution throughout the world.

Nigel Swycher is the founder and CEO of AISTEMOS, an IP strategy, analytics and risk management company with headquarters in London.  AISTEMOS is also involved in a range of initiatives aimed at improving the quality of patent data and plans to establish a global register of patent ownership data.

Mr Swycher’s career includes the development of the IP, IT, e-commerce and outsourcing practices at leading law firm Slaughter and May in London (1985-2004).  He subsequently led the technology practice at Olswang LLP.  Mr Swycher has advised extensively on the monetisation of patents and IP risk management solutions.

Mr Swycher was born in Sheffield.  He was awarded first-class honours in law from Durham University and is a member of the Magic Circle.  Mr Swycher is listed in the IAM Strategy 300.

Ian is a European & British patent attorney and Registered Trade Mark Attorney as well as a Rolls-Royce trained mechanical engineer with a HND in Mechanical Engineering and has some thirty years’ experience in diverse technologies ranging from Aerospace materials to Medical Equipment.

Ian also worked as an in-house attorney for Rolls-Royce, British Aerospace, Massey-Ferguson, BOC (industrial gases) as well as BTG PLC which specializes in technology transfer. He was deputy Director of IP at BTG where he specialized in identifying commercially valuable and patentable technologies and helping commercialise them by way of licensing, sale or litigation. Ian has a broad knowledge of standards related IP matters and has recently contributed a chapter to Graham Richard’s new book entitled University Intellectual Property in which he explores the issues from the viewpoint of a Patent Attorney.

Ian has a wealth of experience in analysing patentable subject matter and applying due diligence processes to the evaluation of IP opportunities. Some twenty years’ experience of commercializing IP is now used to help clients create and extract value from ideas and helps them explain the commercial opportunity and how the IP helps support potential investments. Ian is an expert level user of advanced software based patent analysis tools such as those provided by Questel and Thompson Innovations and has used them extensively to identify licence / collaboration opportunities, potential  infringement situations / license opportunities and to identify relevant prior art and analyse trends in the patent landscape.

Ian established IP Asset LLP ten years ago and is supported by five other attorneys each of which specialize in a different technical area.

MacKenna is a U.S. born English-qualified solicitor and strategic adviser in biomedical technologies. Her legal experience spans IP disputes to privacy, data protection and breach of confidentiality matters. She specialises in the analysis of patent landscapes, intellectual property (IP) rights and bioethical issues for emerging biotechnologies, particularly related to regenerative medicine (cell therapy), genomics and assisted reproduction. Most recently, MacKenna was an IP adviser to the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation (CASMI), a major European initiative aimed at accelerating therapies to market. At CASMI, she focused on its Open Innovation and its Translational Stem Cell Consortium initiatives evaluating the reality of perceived IP challenges and proposed solutions. She trained in the life sciences at Lawford Davies Denoon, a London specialist practice. She previously trained and practiced as a commercial litigator at a top 50 soft IP London firm with extensive experience on high-profile cases, including assisting the successful defence in a leading EU test case for copyright and broadcasting rights in the UK to view Football Association Premier League games using European satellite cards.

MacKenna holds a masters in Medical Law and Ethics from King’s College London and has published widely, including in high-impact journals such as Nature Biotechnology and Stem Cells and Development, as well as, regular contributions to BioNews, an online publication. While her advice distils complex issues into concrete, practical and commercial solutions, it is her unusual, combined skillset that produce valued industry insights. Together she successfully guides the translation of cutting-edge innovation along often uncertain and thorny paths to market. In the age of the less than $1,000 genome sequencing, big data, cloud storage and apps that let us do our banking and monitor our blood sugar levels from our mobiles, the issues of ownership (IP) and access (exclusivity) are tantamount. MacKenna is passionate about science and technology and feels fortunate to be at the frontiers of medical innovation dividing time between London and California.

His Honour Judge Richard Hacon was appointed as the first full time judge of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court with effect from 3rd December 2013.

Richard acts in cases covering all aspects of intellectual property law. Due to his science background Richard is often instructed in highly technical patent actions and these often involve biotechnology and chemical fields.

His work in trade mark and design litigation has included many of the most significant recent cases. He has acted in many reported copyright, design right, passing off and confidential information cases. He has also acted in litigation concerning commercial contracts.

Richard has appeared in the English courts at all levels, in the European Court of Justice and the European Court of First Instance. He appears several times each year in the European Patent Office.

James Horgan is Assistant Managing Counsel at Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. where he heads the European Patent Department. He has a degree in chemistry and has practiced extensively in the pharmaceutical, vaccine and biotechnological fields for 20 years. He has supported research sites for Merck in England and Italy. He has wide experience of prosecuting applications before the EPO where he regularly appears in ex parte and inter partes Oral Proceedings. He has filed and prosecuted a large number of SPCs. He has been involved in major multi-jurisdictional litigation for Merck in cases relating to Vioxx, Fosamax, Cosopt and Propecia, as well as in the parallel import case Merck v Sigma recently decided by the CJEU. He has completed an LLM in Intellectual Property Litigation through Nottingham Trent University. He is also involved in IP policy issues via the IPFederation, EFPIA and Business Europe.

Jonathan Garner is a Patent Manager at Canon Europe Ltd. He is a Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney and has spent the last 8 years working with software and related technologies. His experience includes patent drafting and prosecution, freedom-to-operate searches, infringement opinions, validity searches and related advice. He also has experience of a wide range of other matters relating to IP including inventor compensation schemes, designs, overseas patent prosecution, etc.

Jonathan started out his career at fJ Cleveland where he was a technical assistant for 5 years.

Jonathan Weeks is Intel’s Director of Legal Affairs for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. He has worked for Intel for almost 15 years. Jonathan manages a legal team of 50 people. The team is spread across the EMEA region – with team members based in the UK, Germany, Russia, Israel, Ireland, and Belgium.

Jonathan qualified as a solicitor in 1986. He started his career with the UK firm, Eversheds. Prior to joining Intel, Jonathan held a number of positions at in-house legal departments (including GKN plc, Alliance & Leicester plc and Lucas Industries plc).

Michael is Associate General Patent Counsel for UCB Celltech. Previously he was a biotech patent attorney at GSK for 17 years supporting the Vaccines business. During this time he was involved in various cases which tested the boundaries of how the SPC system should fit with biological products, culminating in the Forsgren C-631/13 CJEU referral.

Gareth entered the profession in 1998 after two years at Electronic Data Systems working as a software engineer. Gareth’s workload spans a wide range of subject matter, with specialist areas including computer software, telecommunications, medical devices, bio-informatics and other computational/chemical interface work. A particular interest is the patentability of borderline cases, including software innovations.
In addition to patent drafting and prosecution work, Gareth is experienced in handling EPO oppositions and appeals. He also has litigation experience, having been an integral member of the litigation team for two High Court patent actions concerning packaging machinery and drill bit design. He also manages and leads a team handling a large portfolio of telecommunications cases. Gareth has had articles published on the patentability of borderline cases and has given various presentations and lectures on this and other subjects, including EPC 2000. He also runs a training programme at Queen Mary, University of London, for candidates sitting the European qualifying examinations.

Dr. Sven B. Völcker is a partner in Latham & Watkins’ Brussels office. His practice covers the full range of EU and German competition law, including merger control, cartel and other behavioral cases and EU State aid. With nearly 20 years of experience in competition law, Dr. Völcker guides clients through complex antitrust procedures. He has obtained merger clearances on behalf of his clients in a number of major cross-border transactions and has advised on some of the largest multi-jurisdictional cartel and abuse of dominance cases of recent years. With a track record of more than 20 cases before the EU courts, he is also an experienced litigator and able to effectively defend his clients’ business interest beyond the authority level if needed.
Dr. Völcker has particularly deep experience in the high-tech sector. He has advised technology companies on several pending EU investigations into the enforcement of standards-essential patents, including the investigation of Samsung Electronics and Motorola Mobility.

Nicole has a science degree and worked for several years in the pharmaceutical industry before qualifying as an IP lawyer at Nabarro.  She joined Rouse Legal’s Dispute Resolution Team in 2008 becoming a partner in 2014.  She works on both UK and international IP disputes, focusing on patent litigation in the life sciences sector.  She acted for Medeva (now a subsidiary of UCB) in its SPC reference from the Court of Appeal in the UK to the Court of Justice of the European Union and is considered to have particular expertise advising in respect of SPCs.

Don McCombie is an English solicitor specialising in contentious and non-contentious IP, advising on the full range of IP rights. He has handled patent litigation and licensing matters involving the MPEG-2, DVB-T, MP3, GSM, UMTS and Blu-ray Disc standards and quasi-standards, in many cases in parallel with proceedings in other jurisdictions.

Don has a particular interest in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) proposals, having worked with the European Patent Lawyers Association on their response to the public consultation on the UPC rules of procedure.

Before joining Latham & Watkins in 2012, Don trained at a European IP litigation firm, before practising at a leading patent litigation boutique in London.