Double partner hire in IP for Taylor Wessing
Following the recent news of Niki Walker's appointment as a new partner to the Employment & Pensions group, international law firm Taylor Wessing can now announce the hire of two new IP partners. Chris Thornham and Tracey Sheehan will be joining the Firm's Patents and Telecommunications teams respectively.
Chris Thornham, currently an IP Partner at SJ Berwin, will be joining Taylor Wessing's market leading patents practice in early July.
Chris has more than 15 years' patent litigation experience and a track record of leading high value patent litigation cases for clients across the full range of technologies, recently particularly in the pharmaceutical sector. He has extensive experience of parallel proceedings at the EPO and litigation elsewhere in the world, as well as first hand experience of US patent practice following a period working in Washington DC and California.
Chris has a strong technical background in physics, having studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge. He is recommended by Chambers for his "enormous knowledge of patent law" and his work on IP/Patent Litigation in the Life Science sector throughout Europe and on a global basis. He sat on the Advisory Board of Patent World for many years before being invited to join the Advisory Board of Informa’s Intellectual Property Magazine in 2010.
Simon Cohen, Head of the UK Patents group at Taylor Wessing, comments:
"As a team we are seeing explosive growth in patent litigation across all the sectors, with turnover up over 20% this year. Chris will be a real asset and will strengthen our team further."
Tracey Sheehan joins Taylor Wessing from Squire Sanders Hammonds, where she was previously a partner in the Commercial & Dispute Resolution (Technology) practice. Tracey is joined by Associate Rebecca Clarke, who is moving with her from Squire Saunders Hammonds.
Tracey and Rebecca's expertise relates particularly to telecoms law, covering advising both corporate and public bodies on the supply and procurement of telecoms networks and services (mobile and fixed). They have advised in relation to the structuring, negotiating and documenting of high value and complex transactions both in the UK and internationally, and have recently been instructed on several high profile Next Generation Network projects. Tracey and Rebecca also have considerable experience of national and cross-border outsourcing projects.
Tracey is an active member of the Broadband Stakeholder Group and the European Telecommunications Utilities Council, and is also regularly invited to speak at conferences.
These hires are the second boost to Taylor Wessing's Telecoms group in the last 12 months, closely following the appointment in June 2010 of Patrick Clark, previously Lead Corporate Counsel at Alcatel-Lucent, as Taylor Wessing's Head of Telecoms.
Tracey Sheehan comments:
"Rebecca and I are delighted to have joined this market leading technology and telecoms practice."
This boost to Taylor Wessing's Intellectual Property capability comes as the Firm launches its third Global Intellectual Property Index, a comprehensive assessment of the best and worst jurisdictions around the world to obtain, exploit, enforce and attack particular types of IP. The GIPI 3 Report examines issues from how much businesses are willing to spend to enforce their intellectual property rights; to whether IP law is keeping up with technological developments and the demands of online business.
Click here to find out more.
Lawyers Chris Thornham, Tracey Sheehan, Rebecca Clarke, Patrick Clark, Simon Cohen, Niki Walker
Notes to editors
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Taylor Wessing LLP is a leading international law firm providing support for commercial organisations doing business in Europe, the Middle East and China.
