Patent Litigation Counsel

Company Description

Guardant Health is a leading precision oncology company focused on guarding wellness and giving every person more time free from cancer. Founded in 2012 Guardant is transforming patient care and accelerating new cancer therapies by providing critical insights into what drives disease through its advanced blood and tissue tests real-world data and AI analytics. Guardant tests help improve outcomes across all stages of care including screening to find cancer early monitoring for recurrence in early-stage cancer and treatment selection for patients with advanced cancer. For more information visitand follow the company onLinkedInX (Twitter)andFacebook.

Guardant Health Inc. is seeking an experienced Patent Litigation Counsel to join its IP Team. As a key member of the team you will be responsible for managing and executing Guardants patent dispute enforcement and defense strategy across a wide range of technologies in the cancer diagnostics space including liquid biopsy and next generation sequencing (NGS)based assays. You will combine deep litigation experience with strong technical understanding of Guardants technology portfolio to help protect and advance Guardants mission of improving the lives of cancer patients.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and manage U.S. and international patent litigations prelitigation disputes and other contentious matters (including PTAB proceedings) from early case assessment through trial and appeal.

• Develop and drive case strategies that reflect both the nuances of Guardants technologies and broader business objectives.

• Oversee all aspects of litigation including pleadings motion practice discovery claim construction expert work deposition prep and trial prep; work closely with fact and expert witnesses internal business stakeholders and outside counsel.

• Conduct and supervise detailed infringement noninfringement validity and enforceability analyses with a focus on NGSbased diagnostics bioinformatics pipelines and cancer genomics platforms.

• Collaborate with scientists engineers clinical regulatory and commercial teams to understand Guardants products R&D roadmap and competitors products and to translate technical concepts into compelling litigation positions.

• Partner with leadership across Legal R&D Product and Business teams to provide strategic IP risk counseling for product launches marketing claims and competitive positioning.

• Manage and coordinate outside counsel including staffing budgets and performance to ensure highquality and costeffective representation.

• Assist with portfoliorelated enforcement strategy (e.g. assertion programs notice letters and settlement structures) in coordination with the broader IP and business teams.

• Maintain and share uptodate understanding of competitive IP landscapes in oncology diagnostics and related technologies.

Nice-to-Have Additional Responsibilities (Depending on Experience and Interest)

• Support IP aspects of strategic transactions including M&A due diligence collaborations and licensing deals.

• Advise on IP licensing settlement and other deal structures in the context of disputes and strategic partnerships.

• Provide freedomtooperate (FTO)counseling and risk assessments for new products features and geographies.

Qualifications

• Juris Doctorate from a nationally accredited law school.

• Member in good standing of at least one U.S. state bar; registration with the USPTO is optional.

• 5 years of patent litigation experienceat a leading law firm and/or inhouse legal department with a focus on life sciences medical devices diagnostics or biotechnology.

• Meaningful trial experience including participation in key trial phases (e.g. opening/closing witness examinations argument of substantive motions) in U.S. district court and/or PTAB proceedings; firstchair experience a strong plus.

• Technical background enabling strong understanding of Guardants technology; an advanced degree in Molecular Biology Bioinformatics Computational Biology Cancer Genomics Genetics Statistics or a related fieldis strongly preferred.

• Familiarity with technologies used in cancer diagnostics and NGSbased assays such as:

  • Methods for analyzing genomic data from diagnostic NGS assays;

  • Library preparation methods (e.g. targeted sequencing wholegenome sequencing methylation sequencing RNAseq);

  • Algorithms and tools used in cancer genomics (e.g. sequence alignment variant calling).

• Demonstrated ability to work closely and credibly with scientists engineers and business leaders and to explain complex technical and legal concepts to nonlawyers.

• Excellent written and oral advocacy skills strong strategic and analytical thinking and sound business judgment.

• Experience managing and collaborating with outside counsel effectively and efficiently.

• Familiarity with AIenabled tools for legal research prior art searching and competitive landscape analysis is a plus.

• Adaptable flexible and comfortable operating in a fastpaced rapidly evolving environment as part of a highly collaborative team.

Hybrid Work Model: This section is applicable to onsite employees who are eligible for hybrid work location as specified by management and related policies. Guardant has defined days for in-person/onsite collaboration and work-from-home days for individual-focused time. All U.S. employees who live within 50 miles of a Guardant facility will be required to be onsite on Mondays Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have found aligning our scheduled in-office days allows our teams to do the best work and creates the focused thinking time our innovative work requires. At Guardant our work model has created flexibility for better work-life balance while keeping teams connected to advance our science for our patients.