Biography
Sandip Patel advises companies in the chemical and life sciences industries on all aspects of patent matters. He is among a small group of U.S. patent lawyers that has extensive experience in all areas of patent law, including preparing and prosecuting patent applications, patent portfolio management, opinion counseling, inter partes practice before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, litigation in the federal courts, and participation in foreign opposition and litigation matters in Europe and Japan. Clients particularly value this extraordinary breadth of experience in engaging him to resolve their most complex patent issues.
Sandip joined the firm after graduating from Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He was trained by a collection of the firm’s leading patent lawyers, who themselves were working at the cutting edge of the law and biotech and chemical sciences. As their apprentice, he learned how to write and prosecute patent applications in ways that strategically strengthened patent portfolios for multinational corporations, like BASF, BP Corporation, International Paper Company, Pfizer, and Raytheon Corporation, among many others. He learned how to draw out of inventors their discoveries. He worked with them to ensure their patents would offer a competitive advantage, and withstand adversarial scrutiny and rigorous foreign opposition systems. Paying it forward, by working with the firm’s junior lawyers, he ensures they too learn these critically important skills.
Early in his career, Sandip learned the basics of patent litigation and how to conduct discovery, how to position clients to advantageously resolve disputes, and how to prepare and participate in federal court trials for companies like Amgen and the Procter and Gamble Company. He also learned how to navigate the arcane and oft-unwritten complexities of Patent Office interferences where the clients he helped were contending for patents on early cancer treatments, genetically-modified plants, and innovations underlying many household consumer products. For more than two decades, he has successfully handled and led contested interferences for many of the companies listed above and also for ACCO Brands, Gillette, Monsanto, Newell Rubbermaid, and Pharmacia & Upjohn, among many others, including smaller companies and universities.
Today he offers clients strategic counseling in all of these areas of patent law, with a particular focus on Patent Office (AIA) trials whose procedural rules were drawn from those used to administer interferences. And he has spent much of the past decade helping clients, including a Nobel Laureate, obtain a robust portfolio of patents worldwide on fundamental CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technologies, including counseling in multiple foreign oppositions and U.S. patent interferences. In these cases and many others, he has benefited from cooperatively working with the best among his peers at other law firms in the U.S. and overseas.
The clients he advises are diverse and include specialty chemical companies, universities, start-ups, and a variety of large, multinational corporations focused on biotechnology, chemicals, or consumer products. Many of the clients he helps are not listed here, as they are not publicly affiliated with the firm. It should come as no surprise that the strategic counseling he offers them is purposely shielded from the public eye. Through recommendations of the above-listed companies and others, new clients find him when they have a particularly challenging issue.
Sandip has a formal education in chemical engineering from Michigan State University (Go Green!), but his work has spanned the entire spectrum of engineering and the chemical and life sciences. And through that experience, he has proven adept at quickly understanding diverse technologies and devising efficient intellectual property strategies that clients have used to achieve their business goals. Sandip also mentors junior lawyers and law school students, and shares his practical insights publicly, having written dozens of articles on various patent law topics.
Sandip’s peers and clients have recognized his legal work and his other successes in numerous attorney directories and awards, including Best Lawyers in America© (since 2016), Illinois Super Lawyers® (since 2013), an “IP Star” (since 2016) in Managing Intellectual Property IP Stars Survey, a “Life Sciences Star” (since 2016) according to LMG Life Sciences, and a “Leading Lawyer” (since 2019) according to Law Bulletin Media’s Leading Lawyers division. Most recently, Sandip was included in the inaugural Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America list. He is grateful for these recognitions, and even more grateful for the many clients that have continued to seek his advice for more than two decades, including Amgen, BASF, and Procter and Gamble. Further, he remains a proud member of the firm, having served for a decade as the chairperson of the firm’s attorney recruiting committee, and currently serves on its executive committee.
Representative Experience
- Counseled clients in dozens of inter partes matters in the Patent Office in a variety of sciences including:
- biotechnology (e.g., antibody formulations, avirulent vaccines, DNA sequencing methods, fundamental CRISPR technologies, genetically-engineered plants, and kerotinocyte growth factors)
- chemistry/chemical engineering (e.g., pharmaceutical compounds and compositions, food processing chemicals, and chemical and biochemical reactor design and operation)
- mechanical engineering (e.g., railcar shock absorbers, correction-tape dispensers, paper shredders, computer locks, hand held razors, and baby diapers)
- electrical engineering (e.g., piezoelectric ink-jet printers, process control systems and software)
- Counseled clients in patent infringement actions in the federal courts involving:
- biotechnology patents (e.g., antibody formulations, recombinant growth hormone, recombinant erythropoietin)
- pharmaceutical chemistry patents (e.g., platinum coordination compounds and methods of treating cancerous tumors)
- chemical engineering patents (e.g., air pollution control processes and equipment, reaction engineering and reactor design)
- mechanical engineering (e.g., personal care devices, such as razors and feminine care products, computer locks, and smart device stands/platforms)
- Prepared and prosecuted to issuance patent applications concerning, for example:
- consumer products (e.g., baby diapers, feminine hygiene products, dish and laundry cleaning compositions, pens, inks, paints)
- industrial products (e.g., semiconductors, construction materials)
- reaction engineering processes (e.g., catalytic reactors, biochemical reactors, industrial gas combustion turbines, sulfonation processes)
- chemical compositions and processes (e.g., superabsorbent polymers, commodity chemicals, cleaning solvents)
- pharmaceutical compositions and associated manufacturing methods (e.g., taxol formulations, antibody formulations, central nervous system analgesics)
Background and Credentials
Sandip has been a partner of the firm since 2002, having joined as an associate following his graduation from law school in 1996. While at the firm, he has drafted and prosecuted hundreds of patent applications, and has served as counsel in dozens of contested proceedings in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in associated appeals, and as counsel in a number of patent cases in the federal courts. Sandip also served as chairperson of the firm’s Attorney Recruiting Committee for ten years, and currently serves on the firm's Executive Committee.
Sandip received his J.D. from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1996. During law school, he served as a Notes and Comments Editor of the Indiana Law Journal. He received a B.S. degree (with honors) in chemical engineering from Michigan State University in 1993.
Education
- Indiana University Maurer School of Law (Bloomington) (J.D.)
- Michigan State University (B.S.)
- Chemical Engineering
Bar Admissions
Publications and Presentations
- "How I Made Law Firm Leader: Advice From Marshall Gerstein Executive Committee Member Sandip Patel,” Law.com, June 17, 2021.
- “Does Section 285 Permit an Award of Attorney’s Fees for Patent Office Proceedings?,” IP Litigator, September/October 2020 issue.
- "The Impact Of Distinct Printed Publication Rules In Exams, IPR," Law360, April 13, 2020 (featured quotes).
- "Come on Board, Finish What You Started," PTABWatch blog, February 19, 2020.
- "The PTAB Precedential Opinion Panel's Hulu Decision: Any Guidance is Better than No Guidance," IPWatchdog, February 4, 2020.
Representative Inter Partes Matters
AbbVie Inc. v. Amgen Inc.*
U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
Biotechnology (BPCIA)
Coca Cola Inc. v. The Procter & Gamble Company*
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Inter partes Reexamination
Chemistry
Opposition and Appeal re: Baxter International Inc.* & Baxter Healthcare S.A.*
Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
Patent Opposition and Appeal
Chemical Engineering
Stevens (Newell Rubbermaid Inc.)* v. Tamai (Seed Rubber Company)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Patent Interference Appeal
Mechanical Engineering
The Broad Institute, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and President and Fellows of Harvard College v. The Regents of the University of California, University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier*
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Patent Interference
CRISPR-Cas9 technology
*Party Represented
Community and Professional Involvement
- American Bar Association
- American Intellectual Property Law Association
- Intellectual Property Owners Association