Bill Mulholland’s practice is concentrated in intellectual property law, including patent, copyright, and trademark licensing, litigation and procurement. His past experience includes serving as in-house counsel for pharmaceutical and agribusiness-based industries. A substantial portion of Bill’s practice involves strategic counseling for these industries, including all IP-related aspects of discovery, development and commercialization activities.
Bill has extensive transactional experience and has successfully negotiated a wide range of licenses and other agreements in support of various industry and university alliances. His patent procurement practice includes comprehensive life-cycle management planning, from emerging technologies to post-patent expiry of commercial products. Bill’s life sciences practice includes small molecule chemistry and biologic therapeutics, as well as diagnostics, drug discovery and drug delivery. His agribusiness practice similarly focuses on chemical and biologic-based active ingredients, as well as formulation and chemical process technologies.
Bill’s practice also includes U.S. interferences and European oppositions as well as matters before the USPTO Board of Appeals and the Federal Courts. Prior to joining Snell & Wilmer, Bill was part of a litigation team that obtained a patent infringement jury verdict of $49 million and findings of non-infringement on multiple patent claims brought by the defendant.
Education
- Brown University (M.A., Molecular Biology, 2008)
- University of Southern California Law School (J.D., 1998)
- Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law (Visiting Student, 1997-1998)
- Associate Editor, Jurimetrics, Journal of Law, Science, and Technology
- University of Arizona (B.S., Biochemistry, cum laude, 1995)
Court Admissions
- Supreme Court of Arizona
- Supreme Court of California
- United States District Court, District of Arizona
- United States District Court, Central District of California
- United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
Professional Memberships & Activities
- American Bar Association
- American Chemical Society
- American Intellectual Property Law Association
- Arizona BioIndustry Association (AZBio)
- State Bar of Arizona
- Intellectual Property Law Section
- Federal Circuit Bar Association
- Licensing Executives Society
Representative Presentations & Publications
- Biotechnology Patenting and Technology Transfer, Presenter, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer Office Commercialization Clinic (May 2012)
- Will the Myriad Gene Patent Claims Be Found to Have "Added Enough?", Co-Author, Legal Alert (April 2012); Association of Corporate Counsel's Lexology (April 2012)
- Supreme Court Decision Raises Questions of the Validity of Many Bioscience Patents: Did the Invention "Add Enough?", Co-Author, Global Connection (March 2012); Association of Corporate Counsel's Lexology (March 2012)
- Protecting Your Inventions in China—Considerations Related to Chinese Patent Law, Co-Author, Global Connection (September 2011)
- Intellectual Property Protection in China, Co-Presenter, Snell & Wilmer (August 2011)
- Protecting Your Intellectual Property, Interview by John Criswell of The Headline Business Update on KFYI Radio (June 2011)
- Impact of Genetic Privacy Legislation on Insurer Behavior, Co-Author, Genetic Testing (Spring 2000)
- Genetic Privacy: A Comprehensive Analysis of State Genetic Privacy Legislation, Co-Author, Jurimetrics Law Journal (Spring 1999)
Community Involvement
- Boy Scouts of America
Other Professional Experience
- Syngenta Crop Protection, Senior Corporate Counsel
- Pfizer, Senior Corporate Counsel
- Pretty, Schroeder & Poplawski, Associate
