Carel
Smit

About

• TrainingThree degrees in genetics, two in law
• CambridgeMPhil in Bioscience Enterprise
• RegisteredPatent attorney, Australia and New Zealand; trade marks attorney, Australia
• South AfricaAttorney of the High Court and patent attorney (non-practising)
• RecognisedIAM Strategy 300 Global Leaders, several years running

I'm the patent attorney who doesn't file patents.

I'm an independent IP strategist. I don't file patents or trade marks; I only advise on strategy. With no filing agenda, my advice is about what a company is worth, not how many filings it can generate. It brings together the three things a life-sciences company is made of: the science, the IP and the business.

I studied the code of life, then the law that decides who owns it. Along the way I co-founded Photon Therapy Systems, which took an LED-based wound-healing device to CE marking and into fifteen countries. I later sat on the other side of the table, assessing startups' IP for a European life-sciences investor.

These days I help founders, spin-outs and research institutes in Australia, the UK and Europe build IP that investors can believe in, through my practice, Biophile.

My first book was meant to come out in 2018. Then Cambridge said yes, and the manuscript waited patiently in a drawer. It is finally out, and its sibling is right behind it.