Intellectual Property

Jeff Bernhardt is an associate in the intellectual property practice group in the Silicon Valley office at Arnold & Porter LLP. Mr. Bernhardt's practice focuses on worldwide patent prosecution counseling for clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, especially in the area of cancer therapeutics and regenerative medicine. Mr. Bernhardt's practice also includes the preparation of patentability, freedom-to-operate, and non-infringement opinions, and intellectual property due diligence reviews.

Mr. Bernhardt's has extensive patent prosecution experience in the area of therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies such as human, humanized, and non-human antibodies with application in the treatment/prevention/diagnosis of cancer, inflammatory diseases, infectious diseases, and neurological diseases. Mr. Bernhardt has experience prosecuting patent applications focused on additional polypeptide-based therapeutics for the treatment of endocrinological, renal deficiency, and respiratory disorders.

In addition, Mr. Bernhardt has particular experience prosecuting patent applications in the field of regenerative medicine, including cell-based therapeutics for renal and urologic regeneration.

Mr. Bernhardt has specific opinion and due diligence experience in a variety of biotechnology/pharmaceutical technological areas including hormone analogues, sustained-release drug formulations, cell-based therapies for regenerative medicine, erythropoeitin-producing cells, stem cells, nucleic acid sequences for genotyping, and pharmaceutical formulations for proton pump inhibitors.

Mr. Bernhardt has been involved in patent due diligence reviews associated with financings, mergers and acquisitions, as well as initial public offerings. He has represented clients on both the company- and investor-side of such transactions.

While attending law school, Mr. Bernhardt was both an editor of The Georgetown Law Journal and an Agreements Manager at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Johns Hopkins University, where he drafted and negotiated technology transfer agreements. Prior to that, Mr. Bernhardt conducted basic research on the molecular mechanisms of glutamate receptors and their role in regulating synaptic plasticity at The Johns Hopkins University and co-authored several scientific publications in prominent journals.

Intellectual Property Representative Matters

Prosecuted or advised on the prosecution of a variety of issued patents:

• U.S. 8,337,485-Cell-scaffold constructs
• U.S. 8,318,484-Isolated renal cells and uses thereof
• U.S. 7,918,897-Scaffolds for organ reconstruction and augmentation
• U.S. 7,858,330-Compositions and methods for the treatment of tumor of hematopoietic origin
• U.S. 7,659,368-ErbB2 and ErbB3 chimeric heteromultimer adhesins
• U.S. 7,608,681 & U.S. 7,635,749-Methods and compositions for prolonging elimination half-times of bioactive compounds
• U.S. 7,642,228-Method for making heteromultimeric polypeptides
• U.S. 7,569,076 and 8,128,707-Bladder reconstruction
• U.S. 7,419,801-Methods of protein production in yeast
• U.S. 7,172,897-Devices and methods for biochip multiplexing

Intellectual property due diligence matters related to:

• a US$21 million series B financing of a biotechnology company developing therapeutics for endocrinological disorders
• a US$45 million series C financing of a pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for neurological disorders, which was subsequently acquired by Pfizer, Inc.
• a US$23 million financing of a molecular biology tools company, which was subsequently acquired by Life Technologies
• the initial public offering for a regenerative medicine company
• a US$7 billion acquisition of a laboratory diagnostics company
• a US$52 million series D financing for a biopharmaceutical company developing devices for drug inhalation

Litigation support-invalidity analysis of vaccine-related patent claims.