April M. Wurster

April Wurster helps clients navigate complex issues related to law and technology. Her day-to-day practice focuses on intellectual property and life sciences transactions.

April uses cross-functional knowledge and experience to build a thorough understanding of a company's business, employees, products, customers, and competitors to provide strategic guidance. She works in new subject matter areas on a daily basis, assimilating information quickly and developing a deep understanding in those areas. April excels at distilling complex ideas into understandable concepts.

Intellectual Property

Patents: April assists clients from early- and mid-stage startups to public companies, as well as universities with protecting their intellectual property across a diverse range of industries, including cell and gene therapies, therapeutics, SaaS, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests, and medical devices. April has extensive experience conducting Freedom to Operate analyses, collaborating with scientific and technical personnel to identify patentable inventions, and drafting and prosecuting patents. 

Trademarks: April advises international and U.S. companies on trademark matters, including trademark clearances, ensuring proper trademark usage on product marketing materials, trademark enforcement, licenses, filing and prosecuting trademark applications. April routinely counsels clients regarding name changes and brand name selection. 

Trade Secrets: April advises clients on trade secret protections, such as identifying key trade secrets, creating trade secret registries, and developing policies for protecting trade secrets, which may include amending contracts, marking documents as trade secrets, putting access restriction controls on documents containing trade secrets, and training employees.

Life Sciences Transactions

April is a member of the firm’s Life Science and Medical Technology Industry Group. She provides commercial contracting advice to regenerative medicine, CDMOs, CROs, medical device, and diagnostics clients.  April is well-versed in the legal requirements of regenerative medicine and CDMO clients, including their regulatory framework requirements, rapidly evolving technology, and competitive landscape. She has vast experience negotiating pre-clinical and clinical trial agreements, material transfer agreements, master service agreements, master research and development agreements, joint development agreements, collaborative research agreements, licenses, strategic alliances, acquisitions, manufacturing and supply agreements, quality agreements (R&D, manufacturing, and clinical trial), data privacy agreements, clinical study agreements, and SaaS agreements. 

IP Litigation

April serves as a trusted advisor for matters related to trademarks, copyright, and patents, drawing upon her broad experience with each aspect of the litigation lifecycle, from filing and discovery to jury trial or settlements.