Lisa O'Brien

A UK-, Irish- and European-qualified patent attorney, Lisa O’Brien specialises in the life sciences field, with a focus on biochemistry, neuroscience, oncology, anatomy, immunology, drug discovery and medicinal chemistry.

She has specific experience across a wide variety of biotechnology applications, including antibodies, gene sequencing, therapeutics, diagnostics, genomics and proteomics, as well as chemistry, microbiology, polysaccharides, hydrocolloids and biogums.

Lisa offers commercial and strategic IP advice to her clients while managing their intellectual property portfolios. Her practice involves drafting and filing patent applications at the Irish, UK and European Patent Offices as well as prosecution — an area in which she is highly experienced across all aspects of Irish, UK, European, US, PCT and foreign patents.

Taking a particular interest in supplementary protection certificates (SPCs), Lisa has valuable experience in filing them at the Irish Patents Office. She also advises on foreign filing strategies, infringement and validity.

Lisa works with a range of clients, from spin-out companies and university departments to larger international companies.

Prior to joining Murgitroyd, Lisa held the position of Technology Transfer Officer in the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University. There, she was responsible for commercialising intellectual property from an academic environment in key areas of technology, including neurotechnology, medical implants, neuroscience, psychiatric therapy, diagnostic and therapeutic measures, psychopharmacology and neurotoxicology.

During her time at Newcastle University, Lisa was also affiliated with the Northern Institute for Cancer Research. She has since taught the commercialisation arm of the ‘Masters in Research Science’ course and chaired an IP exploitation workshop called ‘Get Your Research off the Bench’ for research staff in the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Lisa began her career at a Cambridge-based patent and trade mark firm and has also spent time in industry — both as a patent support officer in an international cosmetics company, helping to implement its patent strategy — and as a quality assurance transfer specialist in a multinational diagnostics company.

She has been involved in various activities to raise awareness of intellectual property, including authoring a chapter in the published ‘Biotech Manager’s Hand-Book’, organising and presenting IP workshops for clients and providing basic patent searching training to chemists.

Lisa joined Murgitroyd in 2010.

In 2023, Lisa took the lead of our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Impact group and has contributed actively to our EDI initiatives. Lisa was appointed Director, Patents in February 2024. Lisa is based in our Dublin Office.