Laura Johnson

Laura is a UK and European patent attorney specialising in software and AI-related inventions. She advises clients on intellectual property strategy, portfolio development, patent prosecution, oppositions and strategic patent matters across industries including life sciences, healthcare, financial services and telecommunications. Her work focuses on helping clients protect technically complex innovations where software forms a significant part of the invention.

Laura works extensively on AI-enabled technologies in the life sciences sector, including inventions relating to drug discovery, diagnostics, sequencing, bioinformatics and medical imaging. She has worked with pharmaceutical, diagnostics and healthcare companies on drafting, prosecution and contentious matters. Laura also plays a leading role in the firm’s digital life sciences activities, regularly contributing to webinars, podcasts and publications on developments at the intersection of AI and the life sciences.

Laura advises technology businesses from venture-backed start-ups to established international organisations. Her experience includes helping companies develop foundational patent portfolios around technologies such as identity verification, robotic process automation and AI-enabled data infrastructure. She also has experience managing a strategically important patent portfolio in the financial services sector, working closely with inventors and in-house teams on invention harvesting, portfolio strategy, drafting, prosecution and international portfolio coordination.

Many of Laura’s matters involve inventions affected by patentability exclusions, particularly AI, fintech and software-based business technologies. She has particular experience in identifying and framing the technical contribution underlying software inventions and developing protection strategies that align technical innovation with commercial objectives.

Drawing on a PhD in telecommunications, Laura also has experience in standards-related patent matters across telecommunications and financial services. Her work has included essentiality assessments, claim charting, infringement and validity analysis, portfolio valuation, licensing strategy and commercial negotiations relating to cellular, wireless and financial services standards, including IoT, Open Banking and web payment technologies.

Alongside portfolio and prosecution work, Laura has experience in opposition and other contentious matters involving software and AI-related technologies, acting on both offensive and defensive patent strategies.

Before becoming a patent attorney, Laura studied Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a University College Exhibition for academic achievement. She subsequently completed an industry-sponsored PhD in Telecommunications at the University of Warwick, researching optical wireless communication systems for underwater environments.