Lucy Barnes

Partner, European and UK Patent Attorney at J A Kemp

Speaker

Lucy is a European and UK Patent Attorney. Since joining J A Kemp from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Lucy has worked with a range of clients from small start-ups to large pharmaceutical companies and US and Japanese law firms. Building on her in-house experience, most of Lucy’s clients are small to medium enterprises, whom she advises on overall patent strategy, including filing and prosecution strategy as well as monitoring and opposing third party patents/applications.

She has wide-ranging experience, including of developing filing and prosecution strategies for patent families covering more than 80 countries worldwide, and particular knowledge relating to medical use claims, regulatory data exclusivity for biotechnological products and the experimental use and Bolar exemptions from infringement. She has also been involved both in drafting many patent applications and in analysing the value of third party patents and patent applications, so she has a good understanding of how to prepare patent applications that are attractive to potential investors and licensees.

Whilst in industry she was involved in many contentious proceedings including multiple EPO oppositions, and she now continues to build on this experience by defending the patents of a large pharmaceutical company in the area of antibodies.

In terms of technologies, Lucy has highly specialised expertise in the field of vaccines, together with experience in the fast-developing fields of bioinformatics and gene therapy, in particular, and competence across a wide range of disciplines including antibodies, diagnostics methods and biomarkers.

Lucy graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, specialising in immunology and gene therapy. Lucy also completed a Masters in Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary, University of London and was awarded the GSK prize and Principal’s prize.

Lucy joined J A Kemp as an associate in the London Office in 2014 after working in-house since 2008. She became a partner in 2018.