Two Embarcadero Center Suite 1900, San Francisco, CA USA 94111
April Abele Isaacson is the Managing Partner for the firm's San Francisco office.
April has over 25 years of experience as a trial lawyer and is a registered U.S. patent attorney. Her practice focuses on complex technical intellectual property litigation as well as Hatch-Waxman cases on behalf of drug innovators.
April has first-chair trial experience in technology and biopharma cases. Representing both plaintiffs and defendants, she has tried cases in federal district courts throughout the United States, as well as appeals before the Federal Circuit. She has evaluated intellectual property and litigated claims involving technology ranging from computer and telecommunications hardware and software to biotechnology, chemical products, medical devices, and pharmaceutical technology.
April previously served for nearly five years as in-house counsel at a public specialty pharmaceutical company where she provided broad intellectual property and regulatory strategic counseling during all stages of product development and managed numerous Hatch-Waxman litigations. Prior to that role, she served as a partner at a major international law firm and at a predecessor firm to Kilpatrick Townsend.
April regularly advises biopharma companies, and has a deep understanding of the drug discovery process. April provides counseling on patent and related regulatory issues faced by the biopharma industry, including strategic considerations relating to the construction of patent portfolios, litigation preparation, licensing, patent term extension, Orange Book patent listings and Use Codes. She also provides opinions on issues of patentability/validity, freedom-to-operate, and loss of exclusivity.
April began her legal career as a U.S. Navy JAG Corps prosecutor where she won several high-profile jury cases and earned multiple achievement medals and letters of commendation for superior service and leadership. Before attending law school, she was an HIV/AIDS research scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
April is listed in the 2021 and 2022 editions of IAM Strategy 300: The World's Leading IP Strategists. She was honored as one of the "Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business" in 2022 by San Francisco Business Times. Outside her legal practice, April is an accomplished blogger and podcaster. She is the Founding Editor of MEMO blog and is the Founder and Co-Host of Sidebars, a podcast featuring leading women and other underrepresented groups in patent law.
Experience
Representing private telecommunications company in litigations involving MoCA and wideband technology.
Representing global technology company in patent litigation related to data storage technologies.
Counseling clinical-stage biopharma company on patent portfolio and regulatory strategies.
Representing global consumer electronics company in patent litigation related to location services and notifications.
Representing mobile phone manufacturer in patent litigation involving camera lens optical imaging systems.
Trial counsel for medical device innovator in patent litigation concerning spinal deformity repair devices.
Representing radiosurgery device innovator in multi-jurisdictional proceedings.
Represented a pharmaceutical company in Hatch-Waxman litigations concerning a drug for treatment of opioid-induced constipation.
Represented a pharmaceutical company in Hatch-Waxman litigations concerning a drug for early onset childhood epilepsy.
Represented a pharmaceutical company in an adversarial patent action with a non-practicing patent holder.
*Served as an expert witness in a confidential arbitration proceeding related to a Hatch-Waxman trial.
*Counseled a pre-commercial biopharmaceutical company on portfolio strategy and development partnerships.
*Represented a pharmaceutical company as in-house counsel in Hatch-Waxman litigation concerning a migraine nasal spray product.
*Represented a pharmaceutical company as in-house counsel in Hatch-Waxman litigation for treating Parkinson's disease.
*Represented a pharmaceutical company in Hatch-Waxman litigation concerning a drug for treating diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome.
*Represented a leading agricultural chemical company and a specialty pest control chemical manufacturer in a patent litigation concerning pesticide products.
*Represented a pharmaceutical company in a Hatch-Waxman litigation concerning a synthetic vitamin drug.
*Represented a manufacturer of biological and pharmaceutical products for animals in patent infringement and license dispute litigations related to vaccines, vaccine components, and recombinant DNA techniques for manufacturing vaccines.
*Represented leading portfolio medical technology company.
*Represented developer of innovative rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests and diabetes self-monitoring products in patent litigation.
*Represented designer and manufacturer of laser vision correction systems in patent infringement litigation.
*Represented early-stage drug development company in proceeding for breach of joint development agreement and correction of inventorship before arbitration panel.
*Represented global healthcare company in patent litigation involving intravenous drug product.
*Represented manufacturer of human vaccine product at International Trade Commission and parallel district court patent litigation.
*Represented technology company in multiple patent litigations involving dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and multimedia processors.
*Represented technology company in multiple litigations involving patent infringement, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets relating to contract negotiation software.
*Represented retailers in multiple patent litigations concerning e-commerce platforms.
*Represented technology company in patent litigations concerning power MOSFET semiconductors.
*Represented technology company in patent infringement and license dispute litigations related to digital signal processing (DSP) technology.
*Represented technology company in patent litigation related to chipsets, including accelerated graphics (GPUs).
*Represented chemical company in international arbitration proceeding for breach of contract and correction of inventorship related to compounds for use in personal care products.
*Represented pharmaceutical company in breach of breach of joint development agreement and inventorship disputes related to transgenic animal model.
*Experience gained by attorney prior to joining Kilpatrick Townsend
Insights View All
Blogs
- Adversarial Patent Prosecution℠
- Asset Creation - Prosecution & Counseling
- Life Sciences Patent Disputes
- FDA Regulation
- Intellectual Property
- ITC Section 337
- Licensing, Transactions & Monetization
- Market Protection - Opinions & Dispute Avoidance
- Patent Due Diligence
- Patent Litigation
- Patents
- Post-Grant Proceedings
Mount Holyoke College A.B. (1988) Biological Sciences, cum laude
The University of Chicago M.S. (1990) Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences, Committee on Cellular and Molecular Physiology
Vanderbilt University School of Law J.D. (1995)
California (1995)
District of Columbia (1997)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
MEMO|Medicine & Molecules, The Kilpatrick Townsend Biopharma Industry Blog, Founding Editor
U.S. Navy, Prosecutor/Officer-in-Charge, Criminal Defense and Legal Assistance Attorney (1995-1999 Active Duty; 1999-2003 Reserve)
CalVet Women Veterans Division, Member
San Francisco Intellectual Property Law Association, Member
American Intellectual Property Law Association, Member
Federal Circuit Bar Association, Member
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