Spruson & Ferguson appoints four principals, four senior associates
16 September 2020
Spruson & Ferguson has appointed of four new principals and four new senior associates across the firm as part of the 2020 promotions.
The appointments were made in the firm’s Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Singapore and Hong Kong offices. The firm also promoted two lawyers to associate as part fo the promotion round.
“The promotions recognize these individuals as having shown commitment and diligence in their roles and have subsequently reached significant milestones in their careers,” said Kristian Robinson, the firm’s managing director of Asia and director of patents Asia-Pacific.
Rory Anderson was promoted to principal in Melbourne, where he is part of the firm’s engineering/ICT team. His practice focuses on preparation and prosecution of patent applications, conducting patent oppositions; and advising on patentability, patent validity, and infringement advice.
He has experience prosecuting patent families for local clients in most major jurisdictions throughout the world, including China, Europe, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Anderson has experience in the commercial aspects of IP management, and have been involved in due diligence assessments (for acquisitions and for tech start-up IPOs) and product clearance.
Anderson’s clients have included large local clients and, in particular, Australian universities, as well as multinational corporations in the mining and agrichemical industries.
Robert Jackson was promoted to principal in Hong Kong, where he is part of the team’s chemical and life science team. He has experience in the preparation, drafting, and prosecution of patent applications in the chemical arts with an emphasis in organic chemistry,pharmaceuticals, polymers, and other chemical inventions.
Prior to joining Spruson and Ferguson, Jackson had a diverse career. He worked as a synthetic organic chemist at a high-profile biotechnology startup before transitioning to the field of intellectual property, where he worked in an in-house position for a biotechnology startup and at both US and Singapore-based patent law firms.
More recently, he worked at the National University of Singapore Industry Liaison Office where he managed the evaluation, drafting, and prosecution of a diverse patent portfolio, including small molecule and biologic-based therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, assays, stem cell, and immunology-based technologies.
Scott Philp was promoted to principal in Sydney, where he is part of the firm’s engineering/ICT team. He has practiced as a registered patent attorney in Australia and New Zealand assisting and working with local, international and multi-national clients to develop, capture, manage and defend international IP portfolios since 2001. In that time, Philp has accrued experience drafting and prosecuting patent and design applications across a wide range of technology areas from heavy machinery and robotics to foodstuff production, and from recycling systems and waste management to biomedical devices and lifestyle products.
He has extensive experience in the fields of manufacturing and mining engineering including hard rock cutting, drilling technologies and mine monitoring systems. He has acted for clients in a number of patent opposition proceedings before the Australian and New Zealand Patent Offices.
As a mechanical engineer, Philp’s expertise includes a broad range of technical areas from general mechanics and systems control to fluid dynamics and biomedical engineering.
Grace Wong Hui was promoted to principal in Singapore, where she is part of the chemical/life science team. Her practice involves drafting patent specifications, freedom to operate searches and opinions, validity searches and opinions, providing advice with regard to patent validity and enforcement, and prosecution of patent applications in the chemical field. She is registered as a patent attorney in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and is a registered trademark attorney in Australia.
Wong joined the chemical and life science team in 2013 after four years at the Australian Patent Office as a patent examiner in the chemical examination unit. During her time there, Wong searched and examined both PCT and national phase patent applications in the chemical fields, including organic, inorganic, electrochemistry, polymorph, medicinal, and pharmaceutical.
The firm also promoted four lawyers to senior associate
Anna Goldys was promoted to senior associate in Sydney, where she is a member of the chemical and life science team. She is a qualified Australian and New Zealand patent attorney as well as a qualified Australian trademark attorney. Her main area of expertise is synthetic organic chemistry, however she also has experience in polymer chemistry, peptide synthesis and analytical chemistry. Anna has presented work at both local and international scientific conferences and her work has been published in a number of peer reviewed journals.
David Mueller-Wiesner was promoted to senior associate in Sydney, where he is a member of the engineering/ICT team. He is a registered Australian and New Zealand patent attorney and a registered Australian trademark attorney. His practice includes drafting and prosecuting patent applications in the fields of robotics, food processing technology, aerospace, consumer products, mining, sport technology and computer-implemented inventions. Prior to joining the firm in 2016, he was co-inventor for a startup in the field of composite materials for high performance road bikes.
Rhiannan Solomon was promoted to senior associate in Brisbane, where she is a member of the trademarks team. She has specialized in trademarks for more than six years and has worked with leading brands, including a number of leading global food and retail brands. She has worked across a number of trademarks roles since 2006, and as a registered trademark attorney since 2011. She assists clients in a wide range of trademark-related services, including conducting clearance searches, filing and prosecuting trademark applications both in Australia and overseas, trademark oppositions, trademark watches and trademark enforcement.
Natsuho Yamamoto was promoted to senior associate in Singapore, where she is a a member of the chemical and life science team. Prior to joining the firm, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she was involved with a project on cobalt complexes that selectively inhibit proteins that contain histidine residues in the active site. These proteins included zinc finger transcription factors, matrix metalloproteinases and metallo-ß-lactamases; Yamamoto worked on both synthesis of such conjugates as well as their biological testing.
The firm also promoted two lawyers to associate: Vivian Cheng Wei, a member of the chemical and life science team in Singapore, and Faran Ward, a member fo the engineering/ICT team in Brisbane.
