Vanessa Bockhorni is a German Patent Attorney and European Trademark and Design Attorney. She studied law for Patent and Trademark Attorneys at the University of Hagen, Germany and graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney with a first class BScHonours degree in Biotechnology, specialising in immunology, molecular and cellular biology.

She was educated at the German Patent and Trademark Office as well as the German Federal Patent Court in Munich and obtained in-service training at Bockhorni & Colleagues.

Her finals Honour project, supported by Immune System Therapeutics Ltd. (ISTL), involved “Mapping the Epitope of a Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibody using Site-directed Mutagenesis”. Vanessa Bockhorni gained further experience in the areas of cancer research at ISTL and in the areas of biochemical plant pathology at the Bavarian State Research Centre for Agriculture and the German Research Centre for Environmental Health.

After qualifying as Certified International Economic Specialist from the Bavarian Academy for foreign economics in 2004, Vanessa Bockhorni gained experience in the marketing department at Saint-Gobain Industries in France.

Since April 2012, Vanessa works as German Patent Attorney and European Trademark and Design Attorney in our office. Vanessa represents clients in all IP matters before the German Patent and Trademark Office, the Office of Harmonization in the Internal Market and in infringement proceedings before the civil courts in Germany. Apart from her expertise in trademark and design related disputes her focus lies on inventions in the area of Biotechnology.

She is a member of the examination board for German patent attorneys at the GPTO, a member of the board of the Wirtschaftsjunioren Kaufbeuren-Ostallgäu and a member of IP associations such as the European Communities Trademark Association (ECTA), International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys (FICPI), International Trademark Association (INTA), Association of Intellectual Property Experts (VPP), the Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group (PTMG), Young European Biotech Network (YEBN).

Publication: The Journal of Immunology “Free Ig Light Chains Interact with Sphingomyelin and Are Found on the Surface of Myeloma Plasma Cells in an Aggregated Form”, J. Immunol. 2010, 185; 4179-4188; Andrew T. Hutchinson, Paul A. Ramsland, Darren R. Jones, Mark Agostino, Maria E. Lund, Cameron V. Jennings, Vanessa Bockhorni, Elizabeth Yuriev, Allen B. Edmundson and Robert L. Raison.

Foreign Languages: English and French