The team

Carol Nottenburg, PhD JD is the principal of Cougar Patent Law. Before becoming a patent lawyer, her career path was in academic science - from Caltech (B.S. Biology) to graduate work at Stanford University (Ph.D. Genetics) in molecular immunology, to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Harold Varmus, Nobel Laureate (mechanisms of retroviral-mediated leukemias), and as a Staff Scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle, Washington (cell adhesion genes). Carol then became a faculty member in the Clinical Division at FHCRC. For five years, her laboratory studied the causes for poor recovery of the immune system in patients following bone marrow transplant.

Law, and particularly patent law, came next. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Puget Sound Law School (now Seattle University Law School), she joined the law firm of Seed and Berry in Seattle, Washington as an associate lawyer. There she had primary responsibility for a number of small biotech company clients. Her practice focused on integrating patent strategy with business strategy.

A move to CAMBIA, a non-profit, private research institute, in Australia provided opportunity for Carol to become involved in policy issues surrounding intellectual property. In this regard, she was appointed to the Consultative Group of the Biotechnology Task Force, advising ministerial offices of the Australian Commonwealth Government, and to the United States Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology (ACAB). Besides being responsible for intellectual property matters at CAMBIA, she spearheaded the development of the internet-based Patent Lens.

She now lives in Seattle, Washington where her dog, Jarah, and cockatoo, Geikie, keep her company in the office.

View her c.v.

Christine Pratt our organizer, paralegal, and secretary. Before joining Cougar Patent Law, Chris worked with Carol at CAMBIA assisting her with its extensive intellectual property legal work as well as serving as General Manager. Before venturing into this world of patent law and biotechnology at CAMBIA, she had previous experience as a paralegal and personal assistant and was the office manager of a respected Canberra law firm for many years. Chris holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Agriculture) and is trained as a patent paralegal.