Alison Laughlin

Alison is a Senior Associate in the Intellectual Property Disputes team in Sydney, with over 14 years’ experience in the area.

The focus of her practice is on contentious intellectual property matters, including in relation to patents, trade marks, copyright, confidential information and misleading and deceptive conduct claims.

Her experience spans across a number of sectors, having worked with clients in the pharmaceutical, financial services, mining and consumer product industries.

Alison has strong experience and skill in acting for clients in Court disputes, mainly in the Federal Court of Australia and she has recent experience in successfully defending a special leave application to the High Court of Australia.  Her Court experience includes assisting in the preparation of complex expert evidence, often in technical and scientific areas. Alison’s tertiary qualifications in science assists her with this.

Alison also provides strategic and commercial advice to her clients, to assist them to resolve matters in a timely and cost efficient way. She is client focussed and understands the industries within which her clients operate.

Examples of Alison’s experience includes:

• acting on numerous pharmaceutical patent disputes in the Federal Court of Australia (and potential disputes), including in the area of monoclonal antibodies, cancer treatments, hypertension, antihistamines and diabetes
• acting for Anchorage Capital Group, L.L.C., a global investment firm, in relation to a major trade mark dispute relating to the name ‘Anchorage’. This included the successful defence of a High Court Special Leave Application
• acting for a global mining manufacturer in the Federal Court of Australia defending allegations of patent infringement relating to coal centrifuges

Background

Alison has a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Hons) and a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) from the University of Sydney. She is a member of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand.