biography

Dr. Naira Simmons focuses on strategic intellectual property counseling in a wide range of technical fields, including pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Her expertise includes strategic counseling for clients related to patent prosecution, due diligence, patentability, invalidity, non-infringement, and freedom-to-operate analyses relating to financings, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings.

She has counseled clients in a variety of IP areas, including CRISPR technologies, small molecule pharmaceuticals, antibodies, sequencing, organ transplant, and various types of platform companies. Naira has prepared and prosecuted patent applications in the United States and multiple other jurisdictions, including Europe, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia. Naira provides legal counseling to companies at various stages of growth, from pre-financing start-ups to public companies.

Prior to joining the firm, Naira completed doctoral research at Weill Cornell focused on the functional characterization of mouse embryonic stem cells and transgenic mouse models. Naira also worked with the Committee on Science Technology and Law (CSTL) at the National Academy of S...

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  • Publications
    • Naira Simmons, Saving the horseshoe crab: A synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood for endotoxin detection, PLoS Biol 16(10): e2006607 (2018).
    • Naira Simmons, Putting Yourself in the Shoes of a Patent Examiner: Overview of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Examiner Production (Count) System, 17(1) The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law 32-41 (2017).
    • Naira Simmons, Why the Supreme Court Should Use Ariosa v. Sequenom to Provide Further Guidance on 35 U.S.C. § 101 Patent Eligibility, 16 Chi. -Kent J. Intell. Prop. 112 (2016).
    • Rezende N.C., (2012) Benefiting the Ones Who Can Benefit the Most. Cornell Daily News. Feb. 24th 2012. Vol. 128 No 96
    • Rezende N.C., et al. (2011). Rex1 (Zfp42) Null Mice Show Impaired Testicular Function, Abnormal Testis Morphology, and Aberrant Gene Expression. Developmental Biology. 2011 Aug. 15; 356(2):370-82. PMID: 21641340
    • Rezende, N.C., et al. (2009). Regulation of stem cell pluripotency and differentiation involves a mutual regulatory circuit of the NANOG, OCT4, and SOX2 pluripotency transcription factors with polycomb repressive complexes and stem cell microRNAs. Stem Cells and Development. 2009 Sep.; 18, 1093-1108. PMID: 194805

Palo Alto

Credentials

Admissions

State Bar of California
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Education

University of California, Hastings College of the Law, J.D.
Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University, Ph.D.
Hunter College of the City University of New York, B.A.

Prior Law Firm Experience

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Practice Areas