Expertise
Lee joined Symbiosis as a trainee in 2011 and was appointed as a co-director in 2018. He is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney, Registered European Patent Attorney, and UK Patent Litigator.
Lee has a technical background in Biochemistry and a PhD in Developmental Genetics and Embryology, with post-doctoral experience in developmental cell fate mechanisms and pathways.
Lee acts for individual inventors, multiple UK and international academic institutions, and several small and medium-sized companies. He also has experience in due diligence investigations and providing advice on scope of protection and portfolio robustness, identifying and mitigating risks on behalf of clients.
Lee has particular expertise in highly commercially relevant life science fields, such as vaccine technologies including anti-virals and anti-tumour vaccines; antibodies and antibody therapeutics; anti-infectives such as therapeutics; stem cell technologies; diagnostics and prognostics including platforms and tests for early detection of bacterial infection and prediction of cancer; biomarkers; gene therapies; genetic detection and analytical techniques; and medical devices.
How do you help clients?
I engage with clients early to discuss their IP, and provide thorough pre-filing assessments and strategic advice, advising not only whether protection is available but what will be the likely scope of protection, whether this is commercially attractive and whether the client position can be improved.
My work involves drafting and successfully prosecuting patent applications across the life sciences sector in multiple jurisdictions, with a good filing strategy leading to robust IP positions.
I have a proven track record in co-ordinating large global patent portfolios for the firm’s clients, including a number of large academic portfolio’s spanning multiple territories.
I am regularly invited to give talks about intellectual property adapting and tailoring the advice to suit my clients’ needs. This includes providing talks for University Technology Transfer Offers as part of their structured training programmes, as well as regularly being on-site at universities to provide advice.
Experience
- Managed and coordinated a large portfolio of over 200 patent families for an internationally funded IP services program, and undertook preparation, registration, and prosecution of applications for patents, as well as coordinated registration of other IP rights, for a variety of academic institutes, startups and healthboards.
- Protected and prosecuted multiple patents for an internationally recognised university in areas across the life sciences, with a grant rate of over 98% across all territories.
- Advised on, and protected, a uniquely coated food packaging surface that has been successfully licensed to a large multinational cooperation and commercialised across multiple international supermarkets.
- Involved in several due diligence investigations prior to business acquisitions by venture capital funds.
- Participated in a multi member opposition team successfully defending a patent protecting a medical device, retaining commercial advantage over competitor technology.
- Conducting thorough pre-filing data assessment of novel antibody therapeutics and advising on data, leading to a robust patent filing that has been successfully licensed to a spin out company.
- Advising and protecting novel adenoviral vector vaccine compositions, and expeditiously protecting same across multiple territories on behalf of the licensee.