Agathe Michel-de Cazotte

Agathe is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution practice group. She represents clients in major cross-border patent litigations and in innovation-heavy transactions. She has successfully litigated in France, the UK, and Germany, and has represented clients in EPO oppositions for over ten years. As a result, Agathe understands the practicalities of a successful litigation strategy when it involves multiple countries and has coordinated parallel cases in more than 25 countries.

With her very rich and diverse experience in European courts, Agathe has a particular interest in the UPC and has been advising clients on unitary patent related questions for several years. She also advises, notably tech clients, on the best way to implement the most appropriate IP strategy.

Her practice has a strong focus on pharma, chemistry, telecom, and high-tech matters where she makes the most of her physics degrees. She has extensive experience defending telecom innovators in SEP (including FRAND issues) and NEP litigation, as well as pharma clients in blockbuster formulation, method of treatment and second medical use patents against launches of biosimilars and generic products.

She has defended major multinational companies as well as highly innovative SMEs including crafting the litigation strategy, drafting submissions and doing the oral advocacy in patent infringement suits, and in opposition and revocation proceedings before the various infringement courts in Germany (including Mannheim, Düsseldorf, Munich and Karlsruhe), the German Federal Patent Court, the German Federal Court of Justice (all instances), the French Civil Courts, the UK High Court and the IPEC, the European Patent Office and both the French and German Patent and Trademark Offices.

Agathe advises global companies on critical agreements involving their technology and develops creative strategies to protect their innovations across Europe. Her time spent in-house with major blue-chip companies has given her a sound understanding of the technological and business drivers behind agreements and litigation related decisions.

Working on a continuous basis with the pharma and energy sectors, she knows the importance of the interactions with the regulator and the impact they can have on litigation/commercial negotiation timing. She particularly enjoys working in a fast-paced multi-cultural environment. Agathe also teaches Innovation Management to business students at City, University of London, which allows her to think about IP from a different perspective and remain as creative as possible.