Dr. Samir Elamrani is a partner in the San Diego office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he advises biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and nanotechnology clients on all aspects of patent law and related business matters.
Samir has substantial expertise in strategic IP counseling and global patent portfolio development and management. He provides outside patent counsel to a variety of clients, including start-up and established biotechnology corporations, multinational pharmaceutical corporations, and premier research universities. He has prepared numerous due diligence reports and counseled clients in matters relating to the transfer of intellectual property, including acquisition and licensing of patent rights.
Prior to joining the firm, Samir was counsel at Crowell & Moring and a senior associate at Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, where he counseled clients in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. While attending law school, Samir was a full-time patent law clerk and patent agent at Burns Doane Swecker & Mathis, a large intellectual property firm, where he counseled clients in matters before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Samir has prepared and prosecuted over 250 U.S., Patent Cooperation Treaty, and foreign applications, covering inventions relating to small molecule pharmaceuticals, molecular design, structural biology, therapeutic peptides, proteins, vaccines, genes, gene therapy, anti-sense technology, recombinant antibodies, fuel-cell technology, zeolites, and noble metal catalysts.
Before starting a career in patent law, Samir conducted extensive research in premier American and European academic institutions. His experience relates to the areas of computational structural biology, protein dynamics, drug design, host-guest modeling, heterogeneous catalysis, and zeolite chemistry. During his academic tenure, Samir published a Ph.D. dissertation on global motions in proteins and a French doctorate dissertation on molecular diffusion inside zeolite pores.
Samir is fluent in English, French, and Arabic.
