Melanie Rupert

Practice Areas

Melanie R. Rupert is a partner in the Life Sciences IP practice at Paul Hastings and is based in the firm's New York office. She has over two decades of experience in the life sciences space, including leading bet-the-company Hatch-Waxman cases on behalf of innovator drug companies, and has represented some of the world’s leading life sciences companies in high‑stakes patent challenges to blockbuster products. Clients praise her as “incredibly smart and strategic,” and “phenomenal and a really tough opponent; her depth of knowledge and skill is second to none.” (Chambers USA – Intellectual Property: Patent.)

Her recent successes include a jury trial win for AbbVie/Allergan in Delaware federal court, where the Paul Hastings team established infringement of three Botox®-related patents and obtained $56 million in damages based on a 27% reasonable royalty. This award was tied for the highest percentage ever awarded in a pharmaceutical patent case. She was also co-lead counsel for Eisai and Merck in achieving a complete victory in a multibillion-dollar Hatch‑Waxman case in the District Court of New Jersey. There, her team successfully defended a patent covering Eisai’s Lenvima® (lenvatinib) product, a blockbuster oncology drug used in combination with Keytruda®.

In addition, Melanie was co-lead counsel for Eisai in a post-grant review proceeding, where she successfully obtained a Rule 36 affirmance from the Federal Circuit of the PTAB’s ruling that all claims of a third-party polymorph patent were unpatentable. She was also counsel to AbbVie/Allergan in Allergan v. MSN Laboratories, a decision that reshaped the doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting and safeguarded patents critical to Allergan’s Viberzi® franchise.

Beyond litigation, Melanie advises clients on other business‑critical matters, including patent portfolio strategy, opposition proceeding strategies in countries around the world, and due diligence on intellectual property assets as part of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions.

In addition to her client work, Melanie holds significant leadership roles inside and outside of Paul Hastings. She has served as global co-chair of talent development at Paul Hastings for nearly a decade. In that position, she has played a key role in advancing the development of thousands of associates across the firm’s 24 offices. In addition, she serves as one of four elected members of the firm’s partner compensation committee. She also served as an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law for five years, where she taught a course on life sciences patent law each spring. In addition, she served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Little Babyface Foundation for over a decade, and she remains actively involved as pro bono counsel.

Melanie is widely recognized by Chambers USA, Managing IP, Legal 500, and LMG Life Sciences for her strategic insight and trial skills, and has been named among the “Top 250 Women in IP.” She received a B.S. in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Molecular & Cell Biology from Cornell University, where she was also a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Scholar, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Personal

New York University School of Law, J.D.

Cornell University, B.S. in Biological Sciences, Concentration in Molecular & Cell Biology