International law firm Dorsey & Whitney announced today that Scott Smith, M.D., J.D. has joined the Patent and Life Sciences practice groups in the Firm’s Palo Alto office as a Partner. Mr. Smith brings twelve years of experience as a patent attorney focused on the medical device industry. His clients range from the pre-funded garage stage to venture backed start-ups to publicly traded companies. Having served as a former in-house counsel at several successful medical device companies, Mr. Smith has extensive experience in patent procurement, portfolio management, due diligence preparation, freedom-to-operate and patentability evaluations, and the setup and management of in-house patent programs.

Mr. Smith represents medical device start-up clients in a wide range of specialties, including otolaryngology (ENT), pulmonology, spine, orthopedics, cardiology, neurology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, women’s health, robotic surgery, obesity and orthodontics.

Prior to joining Dorsey, Mr. Smith acted as the Managing Partner of Knobbe Martens’ Silicon Valley office. In addition, Scott held Vice President and Director roles at prominent medical device companies such as Acclarent, Pulmonx, Baxano, and Align Technology.

“I am very excited to be joining a dynamic and rapidly growing office of a full service law firm that is laser-focused on representing medical device start-ups. Dorsey has a long history of working successfully with device start-ups on the corporate side, and I look forward to rounding out the Palo Alto team on the IP side,” Mr. Smith said.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Scott to Dorsey’s Palo Alto office. He is well-known in the life sciences community as a leading medical device patent practitioner. His addition allows us to expand and enhance our turnkey legal service offering for life sciences companies.” said Evan Ng, Partner and co-Chair of Dorsey’s Life Sciences and Healthcare practice.

Mr. Smith is admitted to practice before the U.S. Patent & Trademark office. He received his doctorate degree from the University of Arizona College of Medicine in 2001. Prior to medical school, he earned his law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law and his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

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