Dr. Lavoie is a Principal in the Southern California* and Twin Cities offices of Fish & Richardson. She represents a range of clients, from industry to academia, with an emphasis on early to mid-stage companies. Her practice focuses on client counseling and strategic portfolio development, patent opinions, due diligence and freedom-to-operate studies, and patent prosecution in the chemical arts. She has extensive experience in the areas of pharmaceuticals (including life cycle management), drug formulation and drug delivery technologies, biopharmaceuticals, small molecules, nanotechnologies, plant biotechnology and genomics, and green/environmental chemistries. Dr. Lavoie also has significant transactional experience in licensing, feasibility, and development and supply agreements.
Dr. Lavoie was previously a Summer Associate with Fish & Richardson (2001). She also worked as an Intellectual Property Specialist for Epix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1996-2000); as a Special Projects Coordinator for Environmental Waste Management Associates, Inc. (1995-1996); and as a Research Assistant at Princeton University (1990-1995).
*Not admitted to practice in California – practice in California limited to federal courts and agencies listed below or otherwise authorized by law.
Selected presentations and publications
Dr. Lavoie was asked for her insight regarding the implementation of the AIA's first-to-file system and how the new rules may impact financial and timing considerations for patent applications after March 16, 2013. See Tech transfer and the America Invents Act from WIPR for her thoughts.
Dr. Lavoie has presented at various Minnesota Bar Association CLE programs, including presenting on topics such as “Creating and Maintaining a Diverse Legal Workforce" (2008), and "Patent Law Reform" (2008). Dr. Lavoie has also presented to private groups on various areas related to patent prosecution, including talks on "Proposed Strategies for Prosecution under the Proposed New Rules" (2007) and "Everything I Needed to Know About Patent Prosecution I Learned in Kindergarten" (2005).
Dr. Lavoie is the co-author of "Delivering Macro-Quality IP Protection for Nano-Sized Therapeutics," in press, Nanotechnology Law and Business. Dr. Lavoie also has numerous scientific publications directed to her doctoral research on the biophysical chemistry of protein folding and protein-DNA interactions.