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I joined Boult following the completion of an MPhys degree in Physics from Durham University. It was in my final year at university that I first discovered the profession and the interplay between scientific advancements, business and the law was something I was immensely interested in.
Day-to-day, I assist with the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications in the UK, Europe and other national jurisdictions including Japan, China and Korea for a broad range of clients across various industries.
The ability to come face-to-face with cutting edge technologies and assist companies in protecting their inventions, to enable them to grow and prosper, is a key aspect of the profession and one which I relish. Seeing innovations in a multitude of technical fields and breaking new technologies down to their constituent parts, to figure out how they work and what improvements have been made, is one of the reasons I was drawn to physics to begin with. The legal aspect of the job gives me the opportunity to accurately, yet creatively, express this understanding of an invention in order to obtain the best possible patent protection for a client. The duality of patents, in the need for both a detail focused approach to language and broad-brush approach to scientific and technical thinking, is a challenge well-suited to my skills and background, and one I thoroughly enjoy.
In recent years, I have spent a significant amount of time on secondment to the internal IP department of a major global telecoms and technology company. During that time, I supported other members of the in-house IP team in managing and expanding the company’s global patent portfolio. This included aligning and guiding response strategies across various patent offices to ensure the ongoing value of potential granted patents to the business aims of the company. This also extended to developing filing strategies for new patents and priority filings. Additionally, I assisted with the invention mining and drafting process, working closely with inventors to obtain detailed invention disclosures and maximise the potential of future patents. I also supported on investigations into licensing agreements and potential infringement matters, as well as the consideration of patents being submitted to standards bodies.
