Practice Summary
Gina is an associate practicing in the areas of U.S. and international patent drafting and prosecution, as well as trademark selection and registration. She assists clients in protecting inventions such as biologics, small molecule therapeutics, molecular diagnostics, and medical devices incorporating polymer and electrochemistry. Her goal is to craft applications that amply describe patentable subject matter, with claims that can be meaningfully enforced when tested in litigation or the marketplace.

In addition to obtaining patent rights, Gina advises clients on post-issuance activities, such as reexamination and patent term restoration. She works with partners to prepare non-infringement, patentability, freedom-of-operation and validity analyses of products and methods in the context of anticipated litigation or licensing. She has also performed IP due diligence studies to assess the patent assets and liabilities of companies in connection with financial transactions.

Gina has been registered to practice before the USPTO since 2002. She has over five years of experience in life science patent procurement including two years as a patent agent in the pharmaceutical sector. This experience gives her insight into the responsibilities of in-house counsel so that she can provide proactive advice that is fully sensitive and responsive to client needs.

Gina graduated from University of California's integrated B.S./M.S. program with an HHMI grant for work on transcription factors involved in Notch signaling. Subsequently, she conducted bench research on type I diabetes at the Scripps Research Institute.

She has a J.D. from Santa Clara University where she was Lead Content Editor of the Computer & High Technology Law Journal and a clerk to federal judge Ronald M. Whyte.

A representative sampling of issued patents that Gina has prosecuted includes: U.S. Patent No. 7,115,583, "Microbubble compositions and methods for oligonucleotide delivery," and U.S. Patent No. 7,148,324, "Compositions and methods for enhancement of major histocompatibility complex class I restricted antigen presentation."

Gina is the author or co-author of several legal and scientific papers (see Barolo et al., "A Notch-independent activity of Suppressor of Hairless is required for normal mechanoreceptor physiology," 2000 Cell 103:957-969; Lai et al., "Antagonism of notch signaling activity by members of a novel protein family encoded by the Bearded and Enhancer of Split gene complexes," 2000 Development 127:291-306; Bradley et al., "Regulation of the development and function of memory CD4 subsets," 2000 Immunol. Res. 21:149-158); Freschi, G., "Navigating the research exemption's safe harbor," 2005 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 21:855-899; and Mohr et al., "The positive side of negative disclaimers," 2007 Biopharm Int. Jun;(20):36-39.