Patent Year in Review: Key Decisions, Trends, and Strategies

Mr. Irving has 47 years of experience in the field of IP law. His practice includes due diligence, patent prosecution, reissue and reexamination, patent interferences, and counseling, including prelitigation, Orange Book listings of patents covering FDA-approved drugs, and infringement and validity analysis in the chemical fields, as well as litigation. He has served as lead counsel in many patent interferences.

Ms. Hooson is director in the Intellectual Property Group at Merck in Rahway, NJ. Her present responsibilities include patent preparation, prosecution, and due diligence support for small molecule, vaccine, and antibody programs in human and animal health. She gained her initial legal patent experience while working at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). She received her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and her J.D. from Delaware Law School - Widener University. She gained considerable bio-pharmaceutical research and development and vaccine process development experience while working as an engineer at Merck, GSK, and MedImmune.

Ms. Kostiew is an experienced patent attorney with a demonstrated history of working in the consumer goods industry including beauty and personal care products and compositions (bars, liquids, sanitizers, shampoos, conditioners, etc.). She is skilled in Patent Prosecution, Freedom to Operate (FTO), Patent Portfolio Analysis, Patent Law, Technology Transfer, NDA/CDAs, and other aspects of Intellectual Property.

Dr. Gao provides IP support for Lilly BioMedicines assets and the Lilly Biotechnology Center in San Diego.  She obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Northwestern University, and J.D. from the University of Illinois.  Prior to joining Eli Lilly, she was a Patent Attorney at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where she supported ImmunoOncology and Neuroscience programs.  She also worked for Fish & Richardson as an associate, focusing her practice on biopharma-related patent prosecution and litigation there.