What a chemist needs to know about patents 2024

Darren Smyth is a UK and European Patent Attorney, and was the head of EIP's chemistry practice group EIP Elements until 2023. He now holds the position of Head of Knowledge, and is known as an authoritative commentator on IP issues, having been a regular contributor to the IPKat weblog and the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice among others. He now writes a personal blog at ipalchemist.com.

Darren's clients range from multinational chemical and pharmaceutical companies to universities, spin-outs and start-ups. For these clients, in addition to patent drafting and prosecution, Darren regularly advises on portfolio management issues, handling of the invention disclosure process, validity and freedom to operate opinions, acquisition of IP, and purchaser and vendor due diligence. He is also experienced in contentious work, including oppositions and appeals at the European patent office, and litigation in the UK and other European jurisdictions.
Darren has a masters degree in chemistry and DPhil in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and worked in Japan for two years at the Tokyo Institute of Technology before entering the patent profession. Darren speaks Japanese and Spanish, and is conversant with French, German and Russian.

Darren is co-chair of IP Out, the LGBT+ networking group within the IP Inclusive initiative in the UK Intellectual Property professions, and was a speaker at its inaugural event.

Jared works for EIP US LLP as a Registered Patent Attorney and is based in Denver, Colorado. With a background in molecular biology, Jared specializes in preparing and prosecuting patent applications and counseling clients on biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device related inventions. Jared has worked for a variety of law firms including international law firms and served as in-house counsel to private companies. His experience includes advising clients regarding numerous IP issues including providing freedom-to-operate opinions, advising regarding in-licensing, out-licensing, acquisition, and disposition of patent portfolios, and managing worldwide patent portfolios for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, life sciences, and medical device companies. He particularly enjoys counseling and advising clients on IP and patent issues related to mergers and acquisitions.

Jen splits her working week between working from SNIPR Biome ApS (based in Copenhagen), and consulting for small biotech companies at Merluccius IP (a company she founded in January 2023). Previously, Jen worked for Inivata Ltd, managing a small team responsible for all aspects of IP, licensing and contracts, and at Kymab Ltd (a Sanofi Company), a biotech start-up based in Cambridge which was acquired by Sanofi in April 2021. Before then, she was at GSK, supporting medicinal chemistry, inhaled medicines and the antibody technology group. In addition to the usual patent filing and prosecution work,
Jen has extensive experience of managing collaborations with academics and biotech companies and advising on all aspects of licencing, freedom-to-operate and due diligence. She enjoys the contentious side of patent work, having conducted numerous Oral Proceedings before the EPO and TBA, and been involved in UK, Irish, German and US litigation. She has conducted patent office contentious proceedings in the US (re-examinations, IPRs and interference proceedings), Australia, Japan and Korea, and been involved in depositions as part of US litigation. Of note, Jen was a key member of the litigation team in Regeneron v Kymab, from UK first instance through to the UK Supreme Court which handed down its decision in Kymab’s favour in June 2020.

Kathleen is highly experienced in multi-jurisdictional patent litigation having acted in some of the most high-profile patent disputes of the last 20 years. Kathleen has advised clients across a variety of industry sectors, substantially in the telecoms, electronics, IT, pharma/biotech, engineering and chemical industries. This includes multi-jurisdictional litigation co-ordination, interim injunctions, infringement and validity litigation in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.