Mary prides herself on a business-minded approach to protecting her clients’ intellectual property, specifically tailoring the patent strategy to the client’s competitive objectives. Mary has extensive experience working with emerging companies at all stages of growth.

Mary focuses her practice on the medical device industry, including patent prosecution, strategic portfolio development, investor-side and company-side patent due diligence, and freedom to operate analyses. Mary has particular expertise in neurovascular devices, interventional cardiovascular devices, transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement, drug delivery, neurostimulation, neuromodulation, orthodontics, spinal stimulation, microfluidics, wound care and monitoring, and orthopedics. She also has experience in a variety of other technologies, including audio devices, acoustic signal processing, semiconductor fabrication and design, genomics, stereo imaging, and consumer products.

Before co-founding Fortem IP, Mary worked as a patent attorney at Perkins Coie in Seattle and Palo Alto. Prior to her legal career, Mary worked in the Bay Area at The Foundry, Ardian, and Miramar Labs.

Mary was selected as a “Washington Rising Star” for 2018, 2019, and 2020 by Super Lawyers Magazine.

EDUCATION

• BS Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
• MS Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
• JD, Santa Clara University School of Law

BAR ADMISSIONS

• California
• Washington
• United States Patent and Trademark Office

PUBLICATIONS

Co-author, IP Strategies for Medical Device Technologies, American Bar Association 2018, Chapter 3 “Funding: Leveraging Your Patent Portfolio,” 115-132.

Co-author, Traversing Material Scales: Macroscale LBL-Assembled Nanocomposites with Microscale Inverted Colloidal Crystal Architecture, Chem. Mater. 2012, 24, 9-11.

Fortem IP

Fortem IP is an intellectual property boutique specializing in patent prosecution and counseling for both emerging companies and international corporations. Our project-based business model eliminates the inefficiencies of time-based billing, allowing us to devote more time towards gaining a deeper understanding of our client’s business.

We do not bill clients for meetings, emails, and phone calls. Instead we collaborate with our clients, leveraging our expertise to build a patent strategy around their technology and business vision.

Areas of Practice

Our expertise covers a range of industries, including medical devices, life sciences, electronics, semiconductors, computer science, telecommunications, and consumer products. We assist clients in all aspects of patent protection, including the following:

• Preparing and prosecuting domestic and international patent applications
• Strategic portfolio development, including patentability assessments
• Competitor IP evaluation, including freedom-to-operate analyses and opinions, competitor landscapes, and assessment of licensing opportunities
• Due diligence to support financing rounds, mergers, and acquisitions