Helen Conlan is a Partner at Stephenson Harwood and an experienced IP litigator whose practice focuses primarily on patent disputes in the technology sector. She has built her career around a passion for technology, strong litigation instincts and a distinctly human approach to clients, colleagues and opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Name:<\/strong> Helen Conlan<\/a> Helen knew early in her legal career that contentious work appealed to her. She trained at Bird & Bird, where the strength of its intellectual property practice gave her the opportunity to explore IP litigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes her route into patent disputes slightly unusual is that she did not arrive with a STEM background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always thought that I might want to be a litigator,\u201d she explains. Initially, there was a thought that trade marks might be a natural fit, but patents quickly captured her attention. \u201cThe strategic aspects of global patent litigation were an immediate draw. I loved the challenge presented by the technical detail and saw that as a great vehicle for extended study.\u201d That meant accepting there would be plenty to learn along the way. Helen still jokingly refers to the technical primers she reads as her \u201cboring bedtime reading\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After many years there, Helen moved on, and finally landed at Stephenson Harwood, taking the considerable experience gained within an established global patent litigation practice into a new adventure growing a patent litigation offering. \u201cBeing prepared to learn from others is important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Helen\u2019s practice is largely technology focused. For her, doing the work to understand the technology behind a dispute is fundamental and part of the joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once a case begins, she makes sure the whole team gets to grips with the subject. \u201cWe sit down and we have a teach-in,\u201d she explains. That teaching might come from somebody within the legal team, the client or an academic with specialist knowledge. The aim is to establish the fundamentals before moving into greater technical detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNever be afraid to ask. Never be afraid to address the simple things. Get the basics right first and then build from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is an approach she follows herself, despite her seniority. Patent litigation, she believes, does not require someone to know everything from the outset. What really matters is curiosity, a willingness to learn, the confidence to ask questions and an ability to apply what you learn to achieve a strategic objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The technology may fascinate Helen, but she is clear that litigation cannot be driven by a lawyer\u2019s enthusiasm for the subject. \u201cYou do have to keep a lid on your own passions and enthusiasm for simply exploring the latest innovation on a given technology\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the client\u2019s commercial objective must remain central. That includes understanding the value of the dispute, the constraints on litigation spend and any critical objectives, such as getting a product to market or supporting a licensing programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re a service business after all, and above all else we have to act in the best interests of our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her role is then to determine \u201cwhich buttons to press when and where\u201d to help achieve those objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This becomes particularly important in multi-jurisdictional disputes. Technology can move quickly, and lengthy litigation may make little commercial sense if the technology itself has a relatively short lifespan. In other cases, it may be critical to achieve an early judgment. It is an understanding that you must arrive at early on in a matter, to determine the legal strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are also the custodians of our clients\u2019 available budget on any given matter, so it is always important to set expectations and to manage the team efficiently \u2013 I\u2019ve not met a client so far in my career who is content for us to do otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Unified Patent Court has made international coordination even more important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helen describes the UPC as \u201cfront and centre\u201d of many conversations with clients. Its geographical reach, pace and cost can make it an important part of a wider litigation strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the court has developed, she has seen the jurisprudence evolve from addressing early procedural questions towards more substantive decisions on points of patent law. The UPC\u2019s speed has also placed greater emphasis on efficiency and close coordination amongst advisors making up the legal team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her guiding principle for multidisciplinary and multi-jurisdictional teams is simple: \u201cLeave your ego at home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEveryone has something to bring to the table. Everyone will have a different experience and point of view, and they\u2019re all valid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than assuming how a dispute will unfold, Helen prefers to listen first. \u201cTake a beat to just listen to everyone and to spend some time thinking rather than doing. Then, and only then, can you piece together a strategy that addresses your client\u2019s particular needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helen has been recognised in industry rankings for qualities including determination, confidence and problem solving. Yet one of the characteristics she talks about most passionately is kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI treat my opponents in the way I would expect to be treated,\u201d she says. \u201cWe all have pressures, we all have deadlines, and sometimes things get squeezed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Approaching a case with kindness does not mean being any less committed to a client\u2019s position. \u201cWhat I want to see in an action is mutual respect for the position a party adopts, detailed consideration of the merits of that, and a reasoned pragmatic approach to finding a commercial solution. I will always fight my corner, but not simply for the sake of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Constant outrage in litigation simply serves to reduce impact when something genuinely matters. \u201cYou don\u2019t win any prizes (or cases) for being the angry litigator.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, Helen had once been on the opposite side of a major case from Eifion Morris, now Stephenson Harwood\u2019s CEO. \u201cWe were opponents, but as it turned out, we\u2019re now Partners,\u201d she says. \u201cSo maybe that kind, considered approach to litigation does pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helen\u2019s career has not followed a completely conventional path. Some years after becoming a Partner, she took an extended period away from work when her son was born. \u201cPeople thought that strange,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut it was super important for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Returning meant rebuilding her practice. Her approach has centred on understanding people as individuals, whether clients or members of her team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She recalls an associate who moved from private practice into their first in-house role. As a leaving gift, Helen offered \u201cone question a day\u201d. The associate could call about anything from a patent issue to uncertainty about presenting to the board. Years later, that former associate has become a client and is leading the patent group for a multinational business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The approach also works well as Helen helps to build out Stephenson Harwood\u2019s IP team. Former colleagues have joined Helen in the patent litigation team and in the trade mark prosecution space. \u201cInvesting that time in those individuals \u2013 whether clients or colleagues – and understanding what they needed, that\u2019s what\u2019s important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Helen, success in litigation is not automatically synonymous with achieving a single favourable court judgment. The position is often more complex than that in multi-jurisdictional patent disputes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of a matter, she asks clients a deceptively simple question: \u201cWhat does OK look like at the end of the day?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer can depend on cost, time, commercial value and wider business priorities. Helen describes those factors as pieces of a jigsaw. Once assembled, they reveal the target the legal strategy needs to aim for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And those objectives cannot simply be established once and then forgotten. \u201cBusinesses change. They\u2019re living things, they move on.\u201d Its important to check in along the way. That is especially relevant in technology disputes, where the commercially useful life of a product may be relatively short and where you may well be battling on many jurisdictional fronts. \u201cClient\u2019s really don\u2019t want to spend the entire life of a product fighting about it, they want to have some time to work up the next valuable innovation, to keep the business moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In mediation, Helen has even developed an informal test for recognising when settlement may be close. \u201cI can generally tell that we\u2019re near settlement when both sides of the table are sufficiently grumpy,\u201d she laughs. \u201cNo one side has everything they want.\u201d Sometimes a result everyone can live with is a more meaningful measure of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The constant opportunity to learn is one of the things Helen enjoys most about her career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AI is inevitably creating new questions around areas including patentability and copyright. Beyond AI, she is watching developments in quantum computing and the intersection between technology and life sciences, including AI-assisted drug discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Green technology, clean technology and renewables are another growing area, while defence technology has also become increasingly significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her career has introduced her to technical experts across numerous fields. \u201cIt opens doors to learning about all sorts of interesting innovations. That\u2019s what I love about being an IP litigator \u2013 it is all about the technology you get to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Away from litigation, Helen\u2019s favourite way to spend her time is with her seven-year-old son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her work has clearly rubbed off on him. On a recent trip to Nuremberg to make gingerbread, he wanted to know whether the recipe was a trade secret. \u201cHe knows all about trade secrets and patents,\u201d Helen laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also enjoys technology, though Helen believes he is likely to be more suited to the life sciences side of patent litigation after he decided to give a school presentation about nanobots made from DNA. \u201cHe will have to speak to Jon or Paul in my team\u201d Helen laughs \u201cthey both have a depth of knowledge on the life sciences side of things\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked which landmark IP case she would most like to observe, Helen chooses something much closer to home. She would return to one of her earliest cases as a trainee but view it through the eyes of the experienced litigator she is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a damages inquiry following an infringement action concerning a patent for deep sea pipe laying vessels. This was before electronic disclosure, meaning plenty of time spent working through boxes of physical papers \u2013 some of which had been stored on pipe laying platforms in the middle of the ocean. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure as a trainee I didn\u2019t have a clue what was really going on,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet those early cases inspired her. More than 20 years later, her route into patent litigation also offers an important message for those interested in the field but without a technical degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou absolutely need to have that litigation instinct,\u201d Helen says. \u201cThen you need to be prepared to put in the hard work to learn – be interested and not frightened by the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, as she puts it rather more simply, be prepared to do the \u201cboring bedtime reading\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LinkedIn:<\/strong> Helen Conlan<\/a> Meet the IP Professional is a PatWorld interview series exploring the people and perspectives shaping the intellectual property profession. Discover more interviews in the Meet the IP Professional hub<\/a>, and find out more about PatWorld, a global IP search provider working with IP professionals worldwide to support informed patent, design and trade mark decisions, on our About Us page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Helen Conlan is a Partner at Stephenson Harwood and an experienced IP litigator whose practice focuses primarily on patent disputes in the technology sector. She has built her career around a passion for technology, strong litigation instincts and a distinctly human approach to clients, colleagues and opponents. Quick Profile Name: Helen ConlanRole: PartnerFirm \/ organisation: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[339],"tags":[555,268,557,48,556],"class_list":["post-4249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meet-the-ip-professional","tag-helen-conlan","tag-ip-litigation","tag-ip-litigator","tag-patents","tag-stepehenson-harwood"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Role:<\/strong> Partner
Firm \/ organisation:<\/strong> Stephenson Harwood<\/a>
Location:<\/strong> London, UK
Areas of expertise:<\/strong> Patent litigation, technology disputes, copyright, multi-jurisdictional litigation, mediation and emerging technologies, trade secrets and confidential information<\/p>\n\n\n\nFinding a route into patent litigation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Understanding the technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Keeping the commercial objective in sight<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Coordination without ego<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why kindness has a place in litigation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Building a practice around people<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What does a successful outcome look like?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The technology keeps changing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Outside the office<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Looking back with different eyes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Connect with Helen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Company Website:<\/strong> Stephenson Harwood<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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