Practice Areas
Dr. Natalie Kirchhofer is a European and German patent attorney and an expert in the fields of (bio)chemistry, pharmaceuticals and life sciences. As a partner at COHAUSZ & FLORACK, she advises German and international chemical and pharmaceutical companies and biotech start-ups on all questions of intellectual property rights. Clients benefit in particular from her strategic advice, analytical skills, sharp-mindedness and talent for arguing cases at oral proceedings. Natalie Kirchhofer has already successfully conducted many litigation proceedings (in particular high stakes EPO opposition and German nullity proceedings), in which she attacked or defended valuable patents for a number of well-known companies in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. She has become an expert in supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) and is also active as an author and lecturer in chemical and pharmaceutical patent law.
In addition, she acts as co-counsel, arbitrator, or expert witness in national and international arbitration or other ADR proceedings, especially in matters concerning complex IP (e.g., patent) and science- or technology-related matters including disputes arising out of R&D or licensing activities. In all these fields she can draw on her vast experience acquired during her work as IP strategy advisor, IP litigator, and advisor on IP due diligence in transactions.
Her biochemistry studies as one of the youngest students at the University of Tübingen were supported by a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. As Fulbright scholar, she spent an academic research year with Nobel laureate Prof. Günter Blobel at Rockefeller University, New York. She obtained a PhD in biochemistry for her research on DNA double-strand break repair mechanisms, which was supported by a scholarship of the Boehringer-Ingelheim Fund and conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich.
After her training in intellectual property law at COHAUSZ & FLORACK, the Distance University of Hagen, CEIPI, the German Patent and Trademark Office and the Federal Patent Court in Munich as well as a clerkship with the honorable Dr. Thomas Kühnen, presiding judge of one of the patent infringement senates at the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf, she was admitted with distinction as a German and European patent attorney in 2014. She then joined the IP Litigation Practice Group of Ropes & Gray LLP in New York for six months, where she gained hands-on experience in US patent litigation and also took the US Patent Bar Exam. After her return to COHAUSZ & FLORACK, she gained inhouse-experience through a 12-months part-time secondment in the patent department of a major German chemical and pharmaceutical company.
Since the end of 2014 Natalie Kirchhofer has been a patent attorney with COHAUSZ & FLORACK, where she complements the firm's Chemistry, Pharma and Life Sciences team. Effective January 1, 2018, she was promoted to partner.
Career
2018:
Partner at COHAUSZ & FLORACK
2015:
Inhouse-Secondment in patent department of a major chemical and pharmaceutical company
2014:
Joined COHAUSZ & FLORACK as a patent attorney
2014:
Six months secondment in the IP litigation practice group of Ropes & Gray LLP, New York
2014:
USPTO Patent Bar Exam (for US Patent Agents)
2014:
German patent attorney, European patent attorney and professional representative before the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)
2010 - 2013:
Trained as a patent attorney at COHAUSZ & FLORACK
PhD from the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Munich (Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds Scholarship)
Fulbright Scholar and academic research year with Nobel laureate Prof. Gunter Blobel at Rockefeller University, New York
Graduate degree ("Diplom") in biochemistry with major electives immunology and organic chemistry from the University of Tübingen, Germany (Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation)
