Life Sciences

Partner, Patent Attorney

Katherine specialises in EPO oppositions and appeals and particularly enjoys working in teams to defend patents in complex cases involving very large numbers of opponents.

Katherine advises on European prosecution strategies for strategically important patent families, particularly divisional strategies for opposed patents. Katherine advised on securing grant in Europe for the very high-profile family of patent cases protecting the CRISPR/Cas platform technology invented by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier.

Areas of Expertise

CRISPR/Cas Gene therapy, AAV Purification and formulation techniques for biological therapeutics, particularly recombinant antibodies Recombinant antibody engineering Therapeutic use claims at the EPO – modes of administration, dosage regimens

Katherine has a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge and graduated with the top mark that year.

Katherine also completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge, based in the Medical Research Council’s Mitochondrial Biology Unit.  Her doctoral project was on the efficiency of mitochondrial ATP synthesis – which is implicated in phenomena as diverse as aging, obesity, pancreatic glucose sensitivity, and thermogenesis in baby penguins.

Katherine joined Mewburn Ellis in 2006, became a Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney in 2010, and joined the partnership in 2014.