Debora Plehn-Dujowich

Overview

Debora Plehn-Dujowich has extensive experience as a patent attorney focusing on life sciences technologies. She began her career as a biochemist and molecular biologist, and now focuses her patent law practice on the biomedical sciences. She assists clients in identifying, protecting, and enforcing their intellectual property in the life sciences space and is experienced in handling IP matters involving immunotherapy, immunology, antibodies, antibody architecture, chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), therapeutics, biological entities, development of biopharmaceuticals, biotechnology, biochemistry, tissue culture, vaccines, oncology, virology, microbiome, plants, seeds, agriculture, food chemistry, consumer products, medical devices, protein chemistry, organic chemistry, small molecules, material science, nanotechnology, electronics, polymers, natural products, chemical processes, water treatment, environment, pharmaceuticals, and diagnostics.

She regularly conducts patent preparation and prosecution, due diligence, and prepares patentability opinions, landscape opinions, and freedom to operate opinions.  Debora has conducted appeals before the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  Debora has also participated in reexamination and interference proceedings. Debora obtained her Ph.D. in biology from Yale University, where she researched the inhibition of influenza virus infections by use of external guide sequences and RNase P in a laboratory led by Sidney Altman, a winner of the Noble Prize in Chemistry. She was also a post-doctoral fellow of structural biology at the Wistar Institute, a nonprofit research institute focused on oncology, immunology, infectious disease, and vaccine research. Debora also taught college biology and chemistry as a tenure track professor at Northampton Community College and was a visiting professor at Lehigh University before attending law school.

Prior to law school, Debora earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry from Geneva University in Switzerland, and a master’s degree in life sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, as well as a Ph.D in biology from Yale University.

Debora is a past Chair of the AIPLA Biotech Committee and is currently a member of the AIPLA Harmonization Committee.  Debora is a frequent speaker at AIPLA meetings and recently spoke on the patentability of diagnostic methods at the AIPPI World Congress.

Representative Matters

• Conducts due diligence review of patent portfolios for several large and small pharmaceutical companies;
• Drafts freedom-to-operate opinions for several large and small pharmaceutical companies;
• Drafts patentability opinions for several large and small pharmaceutical companies;
• Prepares and prosecutes patents in the small molecule and pharmaceutical fields for several large and small pharmaceutical companies;
• Prepares and prosecutes patents in the immunology, virology, and oncology fields for large and small pharmaceutical companies;
• Prepares and prosecutes patents in the life sciences, chemistry, biotechnology, and synthetic biology fields for a research institute;
• Prepares and prosecutes patents in the life sciences, chemistry, and biotechnology fields for a research university.