Attorney's IP career takes her to Johns Hopkins

Attorney Ami (Patel) Gadhia works in the field of technology transfer, helping Johns Hopkins University researchers bring their inventions to market – and to people who need them.

It’s a “sweet spot” for the Wayne State University Law School 2003 alumna, a place where science, law and business intersect to bring discoveries to the world. She earned her undergraduate degree at Wayne State in chemical engineering, and – after law school in Detroit – a master of laws degree in intellectual property from George Washington University Law School.

Today, she is a portfolio director for technology licensing at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures Office in Baltimore. It’s a job she loves and one she hadn’t considered when she started law school.

“I had my mind set on patent prosecution, because that was what I was most familiar with,” Gadhia said. “I hadn’t considered policy work, litigation or licensing. I had the opportunity to explore these different intellectual property career opportunities after law school and realized how varied a career in IP law could be.”

In her job, Gadhia manages a portfolio of inventions and a team of licensing professionals to commercialize inventions resulting from research at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore’s major research university, the top school in the nation when it comes to receiving federal research dollars, and a university widely considered one of the best in the world.

“I am most proud of completing the largest patent licensing deals in Johns Hopkins’ history for the benefit of the university and its faculty inventors, as well as successfully obtaining the first federal manufacturing waiver on behalf of a licensee,” she said.

Gadhia said two of her Wayne Law professors in particular helped to expand her horizons and shape her career path.

“Professor Katherine E. White enabled my internship with Ford Global Technologies’ IP Department and encouraged me to pursue an LL.M. at George Washington, as she had done,”
Gadhia said. “Professor Jessica Litman (now with the University of Michigan Law School) helped broaden my interest in IP as I learned from her about digital copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.”

Gadhia said she chose to attend Wayne Law because of its reputation in IP law, its affordability and its location in her hometown.

As she gained her LL.M., she worked at the International Intellectual Property Institute. After that, she joined as an associate with the Law Offices of Royal Craig, which later merged with Ober-Kaler in Baltimore. In 2007, she was hired as a technology analyst and promoted soon after to a licensing associate with Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer. She was promoted in 2012 to portfolio director for physical sciences and engineering, and then in 2013 to her present position.

Gadhia, who previously lived in Detroit and West Bloomfield, lives in Howard County, Md.

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