Daniel Becker represents pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in all areas of patent counseling, including life cycle management, post-issuance proceedings, patent portfolio development and restructuring, peer review of patent portfolios, transactional and financing IP due diligence, and offensive and defensive patent strategy. He is a registered patent lawyer.
Dan has extensive experience in pharmaceutical life cycle management, both for marketed pharmaceutical products and for products in late-stage clinical development that require additional patent term. Prior to joining Fenwick, Dan had been responsible for worldwide prosecution of a second generation patent family protecting one of the world's best-selling prescription pharmaceuticals. For an Italian specialty pharmaceutical company with an NDA pending at the FDA, Dan secured issuance of two next-generation patents covering the proposed clinical indication for the company's new chemical entity for treatment of Parkinson's disease, for which first generation composition of matter claims had already expired. For a venture-backed company repurposing a drug product that had earlier failed clinical trials in a different indication, Dan designed a strategy for newly claiming the drug substance per se, including advice on new in vitro experiments, and drafting, filing and prosecution of a new patent application, achieving allowance of Orange Book-listable claims shortly after acquisition of the company in 2013. In 2012, in an effort to secure additional patent term for a newly-issued patent covering a French client's lead compound, Dan argued cross-motions for summary judgment in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, advancing a patent term adjustment theory crafted in collaboration with a former colleague.
In his post-issuance practice, Dan has represented clients before the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board in interference proceedings and on appeal from ex parte reexamination and inter partes reexamination. He has served as lead counsel in 10 concurrent ex parte and inter partes reexamination proceedings in the past few years, including reexamination concurrent with infringement litigation.
Dan also provides peer review of patent portfolios, typically in advance of major financings or strategic exit.
Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Dan was a partner in the Intellectual Property and Life Sciences practices of a large general practice firm. Dan has served as a patent advisor to Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, published by the Nature Publishing Group.
For each of the last six years, Chambers USA has recognized Dan as a leading lawyer, nationwide, in the area of Life Sciences: IP/Patent Litigation. According to Chambers USA 2015, he is recommended by his clients for his ability to take a “broader commercial view” when counseling his clients on all aspects of portfolio management. Since 2012, Dr. Becker has been identified as a “Life Science Star” in LMG Life Sciences and its predecessor publication, Expert Guide to Life Science Attorneys. Dan is also recommended in the 2015 and 2013 editions of Legal 500 (US) for patent licensing and transactions.
Prior to his legal career, Dan conducted research in molecular immunology and in mammalian gene expression.
