ATTORNEYS
JOHN STORELLA
PARTNER
BIO
John Storella brings to his clients more than 25 years of experience in biotech IP law. He has worked at Fish & Neave (now Ropes & Gray), Townsend and Townsend (now Kilpatrick Townsend) and Wilson Sonsini. John served as Vice President of Intellectual Property at Ciphergen Biosystems. In 2009 he founded John Storella, PC to provide strategic IP advice to early stage biotechnology companies. His clients have included Biogen, Affymetrix, Counsyl, Guardant Health, Ajinomoto Althea and IntegenX (acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific).
EDUCATION
AB in Biology, Dartmouth College
MS in Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts
JD, University of Virginia School of Law
BAR LOCATION
Bar Number: CA 172894
Admittance: 1994
CREDENTIALS:
Admitted in CA, NY and MA (inactive)
Registered Patent Attorney with the USPTO
ERIC WITT
PARTNER
BIO
Eric Witt is an intellectual property attorney with over seventeen years experience in the planning and execution of IP strategies for emerging and early- to mid-stage companies in the fields of biotech and clean tech. He has extensive experience guiding client IP portfolios both at the law firm and startup level. Dr. Witt was Of Counsel at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, where he helped clients define clear and specific IP strategies, oversaw drafting and prosecution of US and foreign patent applications appropriate for each client’s strategy, negotiated license agreements, performed third party patent reviews, drafted opinion letters, and managed IP due diligence at both the company and investor level in financings, mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs. Previous to that he was an attorney at Morrison & Foerster. Dr. Witt was also Vice President of Intellectual Property at Calera Corporation, a carbon sequestration startup, building a patent portfolio of over 50 issued patents and 300 applications worldwide. Dr. Witt has obtained first patents for clients in fields as diverse as pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, treatment methods, analytical instrumentation, dermatological products, electrochemical methods, green building products, and carbon sequestration.
EDUCATION
BS in Physiology, University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. in Physiology, Washington State University
Postdoc, free radical biology in the laboratory of Lester Packer, UC Berkeley
JD, Santa Clara University School of Law
BAR LOCATION
Bar Number: 218112
Admittance: 2001
CREDENTIALS:
Admitted in CA
Registered Patent Attorney with the USPTO
