Patrick Stewart Smith
Patrick Smith is the leader of the Calgary office’s Intellectual Property Group, and is a member of Gowling WLG's Patents and Life Sciences groups.
Patrick, a registered patent agent, provides strategic patent, trademark, regulatory and life-cycle advice to clients in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, agriculture, biotech and chemical industries. He is also a top IP litigator in Canada. Over the last 20+ years, he has appeared as counsel in more than 100 reported decisions relating to patents, trademarks and copyright in the Ontario court, Federal Court and Supreme Court of Canada. He was awarded the 2015 Canadian Contentious Impact Case of the Year by LMG Life Sciences for his representation of Idenix Pharmaceuticals in Gilead Pharmaceuticals et al v. Idenix Pharmaceuticals et al. His two recent appearances in the Supreme Court of Canada were AstraZeneca v. Canada (2006) and Teva v. Pfizer (2012). In the latter case, his submissions on behalf of Pfizer were adopted by the court as the framework by which courts now judge “utility” in patent cases.
In addition to the above, he has successfully represented clients such as Baker Petrolite, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, Janssen, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dow AgroSciences, Allergan, Bayer, Purdue Pharmaceuticals and Amgen in all levels of court on IP matters.
Patrick has won multiple awards and distinctions for his work. Most recently, he was named the IP Lawyer of the Year (Calgary) by The Best Lawyers in Canada and was recognized in IAM Patent 1000 as a leading litigation practitioner. Further, Patrick has been consistently ranked in Managing IP’s IP Patent Stars and appears on the list of experts in the inaugural edition of the Life Sciences Expert Guide in the category of Intellectual Property. Patrick was chosen by his peers to serve as the President of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) council for 2018-2019 and is a former adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa.