Scientific Update consultants are regularly asked to work as expert witnesses and to assist clients and their legal teams in developing cases involving patent disputes on process patents, polymorphism issues and related matters. Validity and infringement of patents are constantly being addressed and our consultants have worked on cases in USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Thailand, Philippines and Australia over the past few years. Most of these cases involve the pharmaceutical industry particularly when patent expiry is due and generic competition is imminent. We have worked with both multinational pharma companies and with generic companies.

An article by Trevor Laird “What makes a good expert witness,” which gives more details, can be viewed below.

Biography of the Author

Trevor Laird completed his PhD in organic chemistry in 1970 and, after post-doctoral studies, joined Imperial Chemical Industries as a research scientist. He moved on to process chemistry, and worked on development and scale-up of industrial processes. In 1979, he joined SmithKline and eventually became director of Process R&D with responsibility for production of Kg quantities of all new drugs. In 1989, he left to set up Scientific Update, which has been involved in continuing education for scientists in industry and in consultancy. The company won a Queen’s Award in 2002. Trevor is a visiting professor at University of Sussex and is editor-in-chief of the American Chemical Society journal Organic Process R&D, a journal that he helped to found in 1997.