Sharon Crane

Sharon E. Crane, Ph.D.’s is a Member with Rothwell Figg, where her practice specializes in post grant trials at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), litigation, and patent prosecution for clients in the biotechnology area, and she utilizes her comprehensive scientific knowledge when working with clients in all phases of patent law.

Dr. Crane has substantial experience in preparing and prosecuting patent applications in the biotechnology and chemical arts for clients ranging from independent inventors to multinational biotech companies. She devotes a significant percentage of her time to patent interferences, post grant proceedings, including inter partes review (IPR) and post grant review (PGR) proceedings, and appeals before the PTAB and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She has also represented clients in patent litigation in the federal district courts. In all matters, Dr. Crane’s extensive scientific background assists her in understanding the technical aspects of a client’s intellectual property at a deeper level.

Recently, Dr. Crane assisted client 454 Life Sciences, now a part of Roche Molecular Diagnostics, in a complete and total victory over Johns Hopkins in a district court appeal of an interference decision that awarded priority to 454 Life Sciences. Dr. Crane and colleagues also represented 454 Life Sciences in the underlying interference. The interference involved a single count and the interfering subject matter related to the 454 sequencer, namely claims directed to methods for analyzing nucleic acid sequences comprising the use of aqueous microreactors in a water-in-oil emulsion, where a plurality of microreactors each contain a single DNA fragment molecule, a single bead capable of hybridizing to the DNA fragment, and reagents to perform DNA amplification. The 454 sequencer was an important technological advance released in 2005.

Dr. Crane received a B.A. in behavioral biology from Johns Hopkins University, where she researched learning and memory. Dr. Crane’s graduate training was in the Neuroscience Training Program at the University of Virginia and in the Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she received her Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics and focused on the study of lentiviruses. She received her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Dr. Crane is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Intellectual Property Law Section, a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) USPTO Inter Partes Patent Proceedings and Biotechnology committees, and the chair of Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Intellectuelle (FICPI) CET Group 5-Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals.