Heather M. Petruzzi

I'll research this attorney's professional background before drafting.

Let me verify the tracked case and a few specifics.

Let me pin down her specific role in the tracked case.

Heather M. Petruzzi — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus. Petruzzi's practice is concentrated in life sciences and medical devices rather than standards-based or mechanical patent work. WilmerHale's own practice description and IAM Patent 1000 both frame her as advising pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics and medical device clients across the full patent lifecycle — Hatch-Waxman/ANDA litigation, district court infringement and validity work, patent prosecution, freedom-to-operate and due diligence counseling, and drafting invalidity and non-infringement opinions. Her PTAB docket reflects that technology mix: microfluidics and medical device patents (Becton Dickinson; HandyLab), diagnostics/genomics (Ariosa Diagnostics v. Illumina), and pharmaceutical compound/formulation patents (Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer, Eliquis). The one tracked district-side appearance, Google LLC v. IPA Technologies Inc., sits outside her core life-sciences profile — IPA Technologies (a Wi-LAN/Quarterhill subsidiary) asserted software architecture patents directed to distributed "electronic agent" technology underlying voice assistants, so that matter involved computer-software/NPE litigation. Note: I could not verify this specific appearance in the public materials reviewed (the reported IPR and Federal Circuit counsel of record for the Google v. IPA disputes were Paul Hastings and Skiermont Derby), so the tracked entry should be treated as the authoritative data point rather than corroborated by a docket I located.

Side preference. Her practice is predominantly defense- and patent-owner-side, with a substantial petitioner-side IPR practice — she does not appear to prosecute infringement claims for NPEs/PAEs. The tracked data show zero plaintiff-side and one defendant-side appearance, and her publicly described work is representing operating companies (Google, Becton Dickinson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Qiagen-opposed HandyLab) as both defendants in district court and patent owners or petitioners at the PTAB.

Firm context. She is a partner in WilmerHale (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP), based in the Washington DC office; earlier filings in 2015–2017 list her as counsel at the same firm, and I found no evidence of another firm in her patent litigation career. She is registered to practice before the USPTO (Reg. No. 71,270) and is admitted in the District of Columbia and before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Education: JD, George Washington University Law School (high honors, Order of the Coif); BS in Chemistry/International Studies/Spanish, University of Richmond (summa cum laude).

Notable matters and PTAB/IPR experience. She has an unusually deep post-grant practice: her WilmerHale bio reports lead counsel in 13 IPRs for Becton Dickinson directed to microfluidics technology, where the PTAB upheld the validity of two patents, denied institution of seven, and several others proceeded; she was also lead petitioner's counsel in IPRs challenging Becton Dickinson's medical device patents that ended in favorable settlements. She served as lead counsel for Bristol-Myers Squibb as patent owner in an Eliquis IPR that settled and as counsel in a related IPR denied institution, and was counsel in the Eliquis Hatch-Waxman litigation in which the client prevailed at trial against all generic defendants (she led infringement and validity strategy on the formulation patent). She appeared for petitioner Ariosa in IPR2014-01093 against Illumina (U.S. Patent 7,955,794), was lead counsel for patent owner HandyLab in the Qiagen IPRs, and her USPTO power-of-attorney filings show ongoing IPR work (e.g., IPR2025-01030). She has co-authored WilmerHale's recurring "PTAB/USPTO Update" client alerts and is a board member of the PTAB Bar Association; she was named to the PTAB Bar Association's Top 50 Women in PTAB Trials in 2019 and 2021. I did not find a verified Federal Circuit merits win attributable to her personally in the sources reviewed.