Eldora L. Ellison, Ph.D., is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Biotechnology & Chemical and Trial & Appellate Practice Groups. Eldora is a Co-Chair of the firm’s Patent Office Litigation Practice. Over the course of her 26-year career, Eldora has gained extensive experience in inter partes patent matters, building on a strong foundation in patent prosecution. Her experience includes representing clients in over 70 inter partes review and post-grant review proceedings, more than 15 patent interferences, and in various patent reexaminations and district court litigations. For example, Eldora was lead counsel on behalf of patent owner ImmunoGen in Phigenix v. ImmunoGen, 845 F.3d 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2017), in which the Federal Circuit — for the first time since the Court’s inception — established the legal standard for demonstrating standing in an appeal from a final agency action. The Court subsequently dismissed Phigenix’s IPR appeal for lack of standing. More recently, Eldora was designated lead patent strategist for the University of California on its ground-breaker CRISPR technology, and Eldora has led the University’s renewed interference proceedings. Eldora’s practice also includes preparing and prosecuting patent applications; evaluating patent portfolios (e.g., for due diligence analyses, invalidity, non-infringement, or freedom-to-operate); counseling clients on intellectual property strategy, including Hatch-Waxman issues; and resolving inventorship disputes. She represents a variety of types of clients, including large multinational corporations, start-up companies, and not-for-profit organizations.
Eldora’s technical experience has been principally in areas such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, molecular biology, therapeutic methods, diagnostic assays, analytical instruments, immunology, virology, bacteriology and vaccines. She is also called upon to represent clients in other technical areas, given her specialized legal expertise.
Eldora has been recognized as a leading practitioner in the life sciences, and she has served as an expert witness on patent matters. After receiving LMG Life Sciences’ “Post Grant Proceedings Attorney of the Year” award in 2017 and 2019, Eldora was inducted into the organization’s prestigious Hall of Fame in 2021. She has also earned recognitions from Managing IP, Intellectual Asset Management, the National Law Journal, and other leading publications.
Education/Alumni:
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
Ph.D., Cornell University
B.S., Haverford College
Last updated November 2021
