Chris de Mauny

I am a patent litigation specialist in London. I advise clients from a range of industries including hi-tech, life sciences and sustainable technologies.

I have a keen interest in both the technical and legal issues raised in patent litigation. In developing and carrying out a litigation strategy, I ensure that the client's needs and objectives are paramount. This starts with understanding why the client is engaged in the dispute in the first place and how it fits in – or does not – with their business strategy, but it is much more than that. It draws on the whole approach I take to working here at Bird & Bird.

I adapt working practices to the client. My clients have ranged from experienced patent litigators to those who have never been involved in a patent dispute before. The importance of the litigation can range from business-critical downwards. Knowing where on these scales a client and a dispute fit is important when advising clients.

A client is usually a large business but I am dealing with individuals. I consider who they are, who their boss is and how they prefer to communicate.

I have day-to-day management of my own work and that of a team. I look to balance experience and cost of the team members with urgency of the required task to ensure delivery of the best result for the client at each stage.

Besides work on client matters I provide in-house training on patent law and litigation both for our junior lawyers and on an ongoing basis for more senior colleagues. This is part of my contribution to the firm's market-leading patent litigation team, as well as something that provides valuable self-education and reflection for me. Similarly, I will highlight to clients any key legal developments that I know will be of interest to them and welcome the opportunity to provide seminars or hold discussions about them.

• In recent years, I have worked on several complex cases with particular points of interest. For example:
• Litigation for the successful launch of a generic pharmaceutical product which raised singular issues of non-infringement. That case proceeded on an expedited basis, reaching a final decision of the Court of Appeal within six months.
• Litigation concerning exploration technology for oil and gas: one of the more technically complex cases heard in the Patents Court in recent years involving numerous court experiments and a court-appointed technical expert in addition to the parties' own experts.
• I also have experience working on cases before the European Patent Office in the life sciences and energy sectors.