Rebecca Tollervey

Rebecca focuses on European prosecution, opposition and appeal work in the life sciences sector. She has secured allowance for a number of European applications relating to antibody products in clinical trials and has a strong track record of success in both defensive and offensive opposition proceedings.

Areas of Expertise

• Therapeutic biomolecules
• Antibodies, including novel antibody formats and engineering
• Sequence technologies
• Diagnostics, including liquid biopsy

Clients

Rebecca’s clients include multinational healthcare and biotechnology companies, as well as US and European life science companies of all sizes and US law firms.

Background

Rebecca has a degree in Biological Sciences from Oxford University, where she won the Gill Prize for the student with the highest mark in her year.

She joined Mewburn Ellis LLP in 2000, qualifying as both a Chartered Patent Attorney and a European Patent Attorney in 2004 and joining the partnership in 2008.

Opposition highlights

Rebecca has worked on an extensive number of opposition cases, including:

Antibody cases:

EP2691417, T0424/21, Roche Glycart AG v Merck Patent GmbH: Defence of a patent relating to antibody Fc variants, covering the set of modifications known as the "LALAPG" mutations. Claim 1 was maintained as granted following opposition and appeal.

EP2158315, T0168/19, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG v Novartis AG: An offensive opposition of a patent relating to numerous different potential modifications in the framework regions of an antibody. The patent was revoked in its entirety following opposition and appeal.

Liquid Biopsy cases:

EP2697397, Strawman Limited vs The Johns Hopkins University: An offensive opposition of a patent related to “Safe Sequencing System”. The patent was revoked by the Opposition Division.

EP2828218, Margaret Dixon Limited vs University of Washington thorough its Centre for Commercialisation: An offensive opposition of a patent related to “Duplex Consensus Sequencing”.  The patent was revoked by the Opposition Division (appeal pending).

EP2893040, T0755/22, Strawman Limited vs Guardant Health: An offensive opposition of a patent related to methods to detect rare mutations and copy number variation.  The patent was revoked on appeal. 

Recommendations

Recognised in The Legal 500 (2016) as “highly active on the life sciences side”.

Client feedback:  “a talented patent attorney,” who “crafted clear and persuasive legal arguments” and “appreciated the technical aspects of our case” -  Multinational Biotech Company.