Takanori Abe

Mr. ABE is an Attorney-at-Law, admitted in both Japan and New York. He is currently a Guest Professor of Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and formerly a lecturer of The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine.  He is an arbitrator in Japan and sit on various positions in Japanese medical/pharmaceutical societies.

Mr. ABE works in wide areas of international and corporate matters with a focus on intellectual property law and international commerce. The patent litigations that he has participated covers the fields of pharmaceuticals, chemistry, electronics and machinery, which involve advanced technology such as biotechnology, semiconductors, etc., and which are cross-border matters. He has extensive experience on representing and advising multinational and domestic clients in pharmaceutical industry and is currently involved in the drastic battle between brands and also the one between brands and generics. He also has experience in trademark, copyright and unfair competition litigation.

For Mr. ABE’s detail information and activities, please visit www.abe-law.com or email to: [email protected]

Alena Busche

Dr. Alena Busche is Vice President Intellectual Property at HMNC Brain Health and as such is responsible for the IP strategy and the management and expansion of the IP portfolio. Prior to joining HMNC Brain Health, she worked as an in-house counsel at Immatics Biotechnologies. Dr. Busche is European and French patent Attorney and developed her core skills at Lavoix, one of the largest French law firms, and at the German law firm Zwicker Schnappauf & Partner.

Sara Castagnetti

Sara Castagnetti is a Senior Patent Attorney, working in Chiesi Farmaceutici SPA for several years. Sara graduated in Chemistry from the University of Parma. She has broad experience in patent filing and strategy, as she is the IP contact for important projects in Chiesi, mainly focused on new chemical entities and drug discovery. She is also responsible for the IP strategy of a mature product in Chiesi’s pipeline. She has particular expertise in the prosecution of patent applications before the European Patent Office and before the main patent offices worldwide. Sara also has broad experience in managing and developing ad hoc and complex IP strategies.

Jenny Davies

Gustavo de Freitas Morais

Partner at Dannemann Siemsen since 1999 and member of the executive committee of the firm. He is an electrical engineer and attorney, with specialisation in Intellectual Property at the Franklin Pierce Law Center (USA) and on Artificial Intelligence: Implication for Business Strategy at MIIT Sloan School of Management. He is a professor on the Lato Sensu Postgraduate Program at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and at the Superior School of Law (ESA) at Brazilian Bar Association (OAB/SP). He has extensive experience in litigation, intellectual property negotiations, patents, industrial designs, technology transfer, trademarks, access to genetic resources, regulatory and life sciences issues in general. He has a diversified international practice, representing a number of global companies. He serves clients from diverse industries including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, automotive, biotechnology, chemical and petrochemical, electronics and technology, food, beverage and tobacco, among others. He constantly participates in events on life sciences and technology industries, either as a speaker or moderator and is co-author of the books: - Industrial Secrets versus Access to Information Law: a Contradiction? (2014) - Intellectual Property and the Internet: a Global Guide to Protecting Intellectual Property Online (2014) - ANDA Litigation: Strategies and Tactics for Pharmaceutical Patent Litigators - Chapter 18 - Pharmaceutical Regulation and Litigation in Foreign Countries (2012).

Georgia Gavriilidou

Georgia is currently holding the position of the Associate General Counsel (Executive Director) at Amgen, coordinating the legal strategy at a  European Level on legal regulatory topics (including medicinal devices, pharmacovigilance, combination products, etc), market access and litigation. In her former role at the EMA, she was the lead lawyer on the implementation of major pharmaceutical legislation including the advanced therapies legislation and pharmacovigilance legislation. She has also served as chief legal adviser on a wide array of pharmaceutical issues relating to fixed-dose combination medicinal products, orphan and pediatric medicinal products, parallel distribution, invented names and validation/pre-authorization issues. Her experience also covers counseling clients on life-cycle management of bio/pharma medicinal products, including the maximization of IP regulatory rights and representing clients on legal strategy before the National / EU Authorities, the UK and EU Courts (for EMA and clients). 

David Holland

David is a Partner in Carpmaels’ Life Sciences group. He has been leading the firm’s UPC preparations since the early excitement about the new patent system back in 2014. His practice focuses on managing interrelated oppositions and appeals at the EPO, with a particular focus on platform protection and freedom to operate. David regularly supports pan-European litigation with the Carpmaels’ Dispute Resolution team, so he has seen the pros and cons of the current patchwork of national courts first hand. He expects the UPC to provide a valuable forum for disputes as the new system comes to life. David is often asked to share his UPC expertise, both through industry-wide events and also as a guest lecturer at the Industrial Property Course held by the Politecnico di Milano which entitles European patent attorneys to act before the UPC.

Judith Krens

Judith Krens leads the Life Sciences practice of Pinsent Masons in the Netherlands. She has two decades of experience with cross-border patent and SPC litigation in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotech and medical devices. Clients describe her as a highly skilled and stand-out partner for such matters in the region. As a life sciences specialist Judith assists clients with complicated matters in pharmaceutical and medical device regulatory law. Judith further has worked in the M&A and private equity team of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, which gave her top-class experience in negotiating IP licenses and transfer agreements. She is Dutch (Amsterdam bar) and US (NY bar) qualified. Judith is one of the co-founders of the Female IP Experts (FIPE) network in the Netherlands. She frequently speaks at international and national conferences on pharmaceutical and biotech patent litigation.

Dr Martijn de Lange

Martin Müller

Martin Müller studied computer science (Informatik) at the University of Karlsruhe and received a Dr.-Ing. degree in computer science from Saarland University. His scientific interests included logics, computational linguistics, cognitive science and compiler technology. He joined the EPO as an examiner in 1998, where he worked mostly in the fields of pattern recognition and video games, and was appointed Member of the Boards of Appeal in 2010. In 2019 he became chairman of Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.06, one of the boards dealing with computing technology and artificial intelligence, and Member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal.

Margaret O'Gara

Margaret is a French and European patent attorney currently heading IP at a late development stage biotech in Paris, called Nanobiotix.

She started her professional career as a researcher in the pharma industry in the UK and France, before moving into patents in 2004.

Since then she has worked both in-house and in IP firms and spent nearly ten years with Santarelli before taking the IP position at Nanobiotix early 2020. Margaret has considerable experience in all aspects of European patent prosecution, and post grant proceedings, as well as strategies for filing new applications . She is interested in data exclusivity and prolonging the protection of innovative products.

Lyubka Petrova

Lyubka is an experienced judge and member of the Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria.  She was a former Vice President of the Administrative court of Sofia, with a demonstrated history of working in the judiciary.

Lyubka was appointed as a Bulgarian representative and member of the Advisory Committee of the Unified Patent Court.

She is a member of GEMME and the European Judges Group for Mediation.  She is also a visiting lecturer of CopyrightX – Harvard for Bulgaria.

Lyubka is skilled in Intellectual Property, Negotiation, Research, Adminstrative Litigation and Data Protection. Her legal background includes work as lawyer and legal adviser. 

Patrick Purcell

Christoph Rehfuess

Roberto Romandini

Roberto Romandini obtained his law degree from the University of Pisa and his LL.M. degree from the University of Munich, where he specialized in patent law. He completed his Ph.D. thesis on the patentability of human stem cells at the Max Planck Institute in Munich before practicing IP law at a leading IP law firm in Milan for 5 years. From 2013 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich.  Since 2019 he has been a legal member at the Boards of Appeal at the EPO. 

Toni Santamaria

Toni has been leading the Intellectual Property team at Adalvo since 2021. He has more than 20 years of experience in different pharmaceutical companies where he has been involved in developing and implementing complex patent and data exclusivity litigation strategies for several generics and added value products, including leading parallel litigation cases in multiple European countries.   He also has experience in patent and trademark prosecution.

Toni qualified as European Patent Attorney in 2010 and holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry.  

Jon Singer

Jon is a principal in the firm’s San Diego office and heads the life sciences litigation practice. He appears regularly as lead counsel in his matters and handles all aspects of litigation, including leading jury and bench trials, trying cases to administrative and arbitration panels and conducting briefing and arguments before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the PTAB. Jon is annually named one of the nation’s finest life sciences trial attorneys and is an expert in proceedings under the Hatch-Waxman Act. His clients consistently praise his innovative and ground-breaking work and over the past two decades, he has successfully handled dozens of cases covering all aspects of the life sciences.

Sufiyah Sulaiman

Sufiyah Sulaiman is an attorney-at-law with a master’s degree in science. As an in-house patent litigation counsel of generic pharma giants, she has been managing their patent litigation and product launch-at-risk globally. At the moment, she is a senior manager (patent litigation) at STADA (Arzneimittel) AG, before that she was the Global IP litigation counsel for Sandoz (International GmbH) and, IP and regulatory litigation counsel for Mylan (now Viatris). 

Antony Taubman

Antony Taubman is Director of the WTO’s Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competition Division. He formerly directed the Global Intellectual Property Issues Division of WIPO (including the Traditional Knowledge Division and Life Sciences Programme), covering IP and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, the life sciences, and related global issues including public health and climate, the environment, climate change, human rights, food security, bioethics and indigenous issues. He earlier held appointments in the Australian diplomatic service and worked in private practice as a patent attorney, and he has held a number of academic and teaching positions. He has published widely on international IP law and policy, and cognate policy and legal questions. His educational background encompasses law, international relations, computer science, mathematics, philosophy, classical Greek and theology.

Aude Veinante

Aude assists her clients in defining their patent strategy. Aude drafts new patent applications and monitors grant procedures in France and abroad. Her work also includes conducting patentability, validity and freedom to operate studies as well as forming consultations relative to supplementary protection certificates (SPCs).

Aude performs audits in the pharmaceutical and life science fields and advises her clients in case of patent disputes.

Aude is a member of the AIPPI (International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property) and the GRAPI (Groupe Rhône-Alpes pour la protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle [Rhône-Alpes Group for the Protection of Intellectual Property]). She is also a lecturer at the Bordeaux National School of Biomolecule Technology.

Charlotte Weekes

Charlotte specialises in contentious intellectual property work, in particular, patents. In life sciences patent litigation, she has a strong and successful track record in many recent and precedent setting cases in the UK, including the CJEU and the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court). Having over 10 years’ experience acting for clients in the life sciences sector and advising on pan-European patent actions, Charlotte’s understanding of her clients’ commercial goals is reflected in her approach to patent litigation, and undertaking work of an advisory and strategic nature in the context of product management and market access. Charlotte is recognised for “continually exceeding expectations” being “very proactive”, “providing us with a service that we do not get anywhere else” as well as going above and beyond clients’ expectations by providing them with a service that makes them feel that they “are getting more than what we have just instructed them on” (Associate Director at a multi-national pharmaceutical).

Marc Wilkinson

Marc is a Partner at J A Kemp. He is a European and UK Patent Attorney and Litigator with a wealth of experience in the biotechnology and life sciences fields. Marc has experience of drafting and prosecution of patent applications in both a domestic and international capacity and he has been involved in numerous cases before the Opposition Divisions and the Technical Boards of Appeal at the European Patent Office. Marc additionally provides patent validity and infringement opinions as well as freedom-to-operate advice. Marc’s clients range from start-ups to SMEs and multinational corporations, based primarily in the USA, UK and continental Europe.

Dr Svenja Steinbrink