Austin B. Yongye, J.D., Ph.D., serves as a Partner in the areas of chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and computer-implemented algorithms (machine-learning platforms and non-learning-based algorithms) with emphasis in medical diagnosis and monitoring.
Austin advises clients across the full range of the commercial spectrum, from multinational corporations to university technology transfer offices and early-stage startups. He is highly experienced in global patent prosecution, managing and coordinating filing and prosecution programs across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and other major jurisdictions. He has deep knowledge at all stages of U.S. prosecution, including preparing appeal briefs, reply briefs, and oral arguments at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Austin’s practice spans a broad range of technological disciplines, undergirded by a cross-disciplinary scientific foundation including computational chemistry method development, structural biology, immunology, and drug delivery. He also focuses on computer-implemented and AI-related technologies, bringing the same technical depth to algorithm-based patent applications that he brings to chemistry- and pharmaceuticals-related technologies.
Austin’s work highlights include counseling a startup client with its patent portfolio through prosecution until its acquisition by a global leader in sustainable solutions. He continues to serve as patent counsel for that company post-acquisition, a role that reflects both his ability to build portfolios that withstand corporate due diligence and his in-depth understanding of the expectations of in-house intellectual property departments.
Austin also develops and coordinates worldwide prosecution strategy for several startup-licensed portfolio families, aligning claim scope and prosecution positions across multiple national and regional patent offices to support clients’ domestic and international commercial objectives.
Elsewhere, he drafted an application whose principal investigators later secured a multimillion-dollar NIH grant, awarded between the provisional and non-provisional filings, based on an innovative drug delivery technology described in the application.
Austin has co-authored several book chapters and peer-reviewed scientific papers published in Drug Discovery Today, Journal of Computational Chemistry, Biochemistry, Journal of Physical Chemistry A, and Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry. His J. Comput. Chem. paper has over 2,500+ citations.
Outside of the office, Austin enjoys landscape photography and spending time with his family (including their Frenchton).
Key Matters
Managed and successfully prosecuted a top-ranked national research university’s patent portfolio involving drug delivery and immune-modulating biomaterials technologies developed in one of its leading research labs, including controlled-release microdevices, pulsatile-release vaccine formulations, and cell- and islet-encapsulation platforms engineered to reduce the immune system’s foreign-body response, work supporting applications ranging from diabetes therapeutics to cancer immunotherapy.
Successfully prosecuted a top-ranked international research university’s IP involving computer-implemented, machine-learning diagnostic system, a twin-U-Net neural network architecture, that analyzes CT brain imaging to detect and diagnose acute ischemic stroke.
Successfully prosecuted the IP of a pre-clinical-stage biotechnology company and a top-ranked private research university, involving small-molecule NMDA-receptor antagonists for the treatment of stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Managed and successfully prosecuted a top-ranked national research university’s IP involving its non-viral gene delivery platform in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Successfully managed an international startup corporation’s IP involving an implantable soft-tissue engineering biomaterial for reconstructive and aesthetic applications.
Managed and successfully prosecuted a multi-national corporation’s IP in sustainable materials. Granted claims in one jurisdiction withstood scrutiny from third-party opposition.
