Dr. Williamson focuses her practice on all aspects of patent preparation and prosecution, patent portfolio management, and client counseling in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical fields. Dr. Williamson is admitted to practice before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Dr. Williamson is a molecular and cellular biologist with extensive research experience and has authored publications in various scientific journals. Dr. Williamson received her Ph.D. in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her doctoral thesis focused on understanding the role of the Drosophila melanogaster suppressor of sable gene in nuclear RNA processing and employed Drosophila melanogaster as a model system to study post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Dr. Williamson’s research combined Drosophila genetics with the biochemistry of RNA binding proteins to investigate the mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing. Her doctoral work provided extensive experience in the biotechnology field, spanning the areas of biochemistry, genetics, physiology, and molecular and developmental biology. Dr. Williamson received her B.A. in chemistry from Grinnell College. While at Grinnell, she investigated ion pairing and ionic conductivity in polymer electrolytes.
- Developed and managed complex prosecution strategies both in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and throughout the world related to herbicide tolerance technologies for a large agricultural company. Effectively worked with the in-house legal team and scientists to formulate strategies for downstream “improvement” applications to ensure their portfolio continued to reflect the client's business needs.
- Manage patent portfolios for a non-profit research hospital related to a variety of technologies, including various gene-based diagnostic test/chip analyses that can be used to design effective treatment regimens for leukemia patients.
- Strategic patent portfolio design and management in areas related to cytokines and other pharmaceutical proteins and their use in developing therapeutics to modulate the immune system and in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Many of these technologies have now been licensed to a leading biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing immune system science to protect human health.
- Developed an extensive patent portfolio for a complex recombination system for a large agricultural biotechnology company.
- Developed a strategy for the prosecution of a large viral vector portfolio to enable access to market.
- Developed and managed a patent portfolio for RNAi suppression based technologies for a large biotechnology company.
- Admitted to practice before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office as of September, 2000
- Triangle Intellectual Property Law Association (TIPLA)
- American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)