Karen Ng

Karen is a European and UK Patent Attorney. She joined J A Kemp’s Biotechnology and Life Sciences Group in the Oxford office in 2019, having previously worked at another top-tier patent firm in London. Prior to that, Karen completed her PhD in the field of epigenetics, focusing on the role of the non-coding RNA Xist in gene silencing in embryonic stem cells.

What Karen enjoys most about this profession is the constant stimulation from the diversity of the technologies. With a sound knowledge in stem cell biology and gene modification from her PhD days, Karen particularly enjoys dealing with patent applications in these areas. Karen also offers expertise across a wide range of disciplines, including nucleic acid and polypeptide-based therapeutics, antibody therapeutics, microbial products, vaccines, biomarkers, diagnostics and bioelectronics.

As a patent professional, Karen plays an active role in advising and managing patent portfolios for a wide variety of clients, from small startup companies to large multinational corporations. In particular, she has experience of managing large, complex portfolios of patent families, including those covering clinical candidates and platform technologies. She has often been involved in “invention mining” and formulating strategies to optimise patent protection tailored to clients’ needs.

Karen has been involved in attacking and defending European patents in opposition and appeal proceedings before the EPO, often involving multiple parties. She also has experience of managing pan European supplementary protection certificate (SPC) application portfolios and advising on issues regarding validity and freedom to operate.

Karen is from Hong Kong and has lived in England for over 25 years. She is a native Cantonese speaker and speaks English fluently. She also lived in Taipei for a year in 2018 and is conversational in Mandarin.