I was employed at Cerus Corporation for three years. By various criteria, it was the best…read moreemployment experience in my life. The good things about working at Cerus, at least at that time, are as follows:
(1) At that time, I had four years of solid experience as a Registered Patent Agent, and had reached the point where I could independently provide advice on patent strategy. Most important, is that I suggested that we do a Rule 99 submission, where my goal was to invalidate the claims of a competitor's patent application. I submitted a memo to outside counsel (Gladys Monroy, JD, PhD at MoFo), and my strategy was approved. The end-result materialized several years later, and the result was that the claims in our competitor's patent application were rendered invalid. In detail, the claims were caused to be so narrow, so that they were narrowly drawn to SEQ. ID. 23, and thus were not a threat any more to Cerus Corporation. This was a good accomplishment for two reasons. First, it gave Cerus freedom-to-operate and Cerus then was able to make, use, and sell its ActA-N100 vaccine platform. Second, I had saved Cerus Corporation about $200,000, because that would have been the cost to invalidate our competitor's patent application by way of other methods. The cost of my Rule 99 submission was low (the cost of two FedEx packages). Also, I contributed 25% of the arguments to a European Opposition. We prevailed, and the result was that the competitor's claims were narrowed by the European court.
(2) At that time, I was a direct report to Dr. Tom Dubensky, and I had frequent contacts with lead scientists who had received their Ph.D. degrees from their work in Prof. Daniel Portnoy's laboratory, or from Prof. Gary Firestone's lab. Moreover, I had occasional contact with SAB member, Prof. Drew Pardoll, Director of Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Hopkins. For example, I was flown to Baltimore to review disclosures in lab notebooks from Prof. Pardoll's researchers. At Cerus, it was always the case that my coworkers and colleagues were (and continue to be) top-flight experts in oncology, immunology, molecular biology, and bacteriology.
(3) It is always a great gift when the employment situation forces you to learn new stuff. Before Cerus, I was at Schering-Plough, where all of my patents related to drugs that BLOCKED immune response (drugs for arthritis, for multiple sclerosis, for inflammation), but at Cerus, all of my patents related to drugs that STIMULATED immune response (drugs for cancer and viral infections). And so, as a result of working at Schering and at Cerus, I acqiired expertise in both halves of cellular immunology. Also regarding learning, at that time, I was ramping up my practice of writing articles about patent prosecution. My first article from Cerus (see attachment) was on "DUTY TO DISCLOSE." My second article from Cerus was about "PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS." Fast-forward to the present, I have now published more extensively on patent prosecution than any person (15 articles, ranging from 60 to 110 pages long). Most of these were published in JPTOS. As a result of this publishing activity, I have become skilled at winning patent allowances, and in recent years, my rebuttal arguments resulted in the allowance of twelve consecutive patents for various clients. Another consequence of published these articles, is that I received the 2016 Rossman Award, which was presented to me at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (see photo).
(4) Other great things about Cerus Corporation included: (a) No gossiping secretaries; (b) No drama queens; (c) Pleasant semi-suburban work environment; (d) Beautiful morning commute where, after passing through the Caldecott Tunnel, all employees were treated to a glorious view of Mt. Diablo; (e) Nice annual picnic and nice all-company softball game; (f) Great meetings with Scientfic Advisory Board (SAB) with elegant weekend accommodations at a motel in Sonoma Country and an elegant supper at GENERAL'S DAUGHTER.
