Skip to main content
Melanie l mayer ph d torso

Melanie L. Mayer

Partner
Litigation
Industry Co-Leader
Life Sciences

Melanie’s strong technical background and commitment to clients’ business objectives help inform her strategy in high-stakes intellectual property disputes.

With a Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics, and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, one of Melanie’s essential differentiators as a litigator is her ability to understand her client’s technology at a sophisticated level, and to distill those complex technical issues into compelling arguments before a judge or jury.

Melanie co-leads Fenwick’s life sciences practice group. Her practice encompasses intellectual property litigation and dispute resolution, including patent infringement and licensing disputes.

Recognized by IAM Patent 1000 as a top patent litigator, Melanie has led cases involving a range of technologies—from biotechnology to e-commerce and high-performance computing systems—for some of the world’s most innovative companies. She is particularly well-versed in life sciences matters, including those related to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, enzyme variants, polymers, and drug screening and delivery platforms.

Melanie has a strong record of success in the courtroom, including landmark cases such as representing Cray in a venue decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, setting forth the standard for determining what constitutes a “regular and established place of business” under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b).

  • Lashify, Inc. in its $30.5M jury verdict in a patent infringement case. The victory came after a Texas jury found that Qingdao Lashbeauty Cosmetic willfully infringed three of Lashify's patents
  • Meril Lifesciences in its summary judgment win with respect to all asserted patent infringement claims related to a transcatheter heart valve based on the safe harbor of 35 U.S.C. 271(e)(1)
  • Novo Nordisk in a series of Hatch-Waxman patent litigationsinvolving the blockbuster type 2 diabetes and obesity drugs Victoza®, and Saxenda®
  • Quest Diagnostics in a patent infringement suit related to mass spectrometry assays. After getting a favorable claim construction ruling and defeating LabCorp’s motion to invalidate Quest’s patent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the parties reached a favorable settlement.
  • UCB in Hatch-Waxman trial, PTAB, and appellate wins for its Cimzia®, Neupro®, Toviaz®, and Vimpat® products, as well as ongoing litigations involving those products and others
  • Amazon.com and Audible, Inc. in their jury verdict of non-infringement in a patent infringement case. The victory came after a Delaware jury found that the client did not infringe the asserted patent claims and that those claims were invalid as anticipated, obvious, and under § 101.
  • Amazon.com
  • Helix
  • iRhythm Technologies
  • Lashify
  • Meril Lifesciences
  • Novozymes
  • Quest Diagnostics
  • UCB
  • Mayer, ML, Pot, I, Chang, M, Xu, H, Aneliunas, V, Kwok, T., Newitt, R, Aebersold, R, Boone, C, Brown, GW, and Hieter, P, “Identification of protein complexes required for efficient sister chromatid cohesion,” Mol. Biol. Cell. (2004) 15(4): 1736-45.
  • Mayer, ML, Gygi, SP, Aebersold, R, and Hieter, P, “Identification of RFC (Ctf18p, Ctf8p, Dcc1p): an alternative RFC complex required for sister chromatic cohesion in S. cerevisiae,” Mol. Cell. (2001) 7(5): 959-70.
  • Mayer, ML and Hieter, P, “Protein networks – built by association,” Nat. Biotechnol. (2000) 18(12): 1242-3.
  • Nava, VE, Cheng, EH, Veliuona, M, Zou, S, Clem, RJ, Mayer, ML, and Hardwick, JM, “Herpesvirus saimiri encodes a functional homolog of the human bcl-2 oncogene,” J. Virol. (1997) 71(5): 4118-22.
  • Bassett, DE Jr, Basrai, MA, Connelly, C, Hyland, KM, Kitagawa, K, Mayer, ML, Morrow, DM, Page, AM, Resto, VA, Skibbens, RV, and Hieter, P, “Exploiting the complete yeast genome sequence,” Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. (1996) 6(6): 763-6.