Dr. Robert Yeh is an associate in the San Diego office of Latham & Watkins and is a member of the firm’s Corporate Department and Healthcare & Life Sciences Practice.

Robert advises companies and their investors in the life sciences space on intellectual property issues that are essential to their success at all stages of their life cycle, drawing on his extensive experience as a scientist and former patent litigator. Robert advises clients on matters including: 

  • Complex licensing transactions
  • Joint ventures and co-promotion, co-marketing, and co-commercialization agreements 
  • Services and distribution agreements 
  • Research and collaboration agreements 
  • Mergers and acquisitions and related ancillary agreements
  • Manufacturing and quality agreements
  • Intellectual property issues in private and public financing, including IPO, follow-on offering, and debt issuance.

Robert also represents various, buyers, sellers, investment banks, and other financial institutions in performing intellectual property due diligence for private and public financings and mergers and acquisitions.

Robert is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to joining Latham, Robert developed substantial experience in patent litigation and patent prosecution and counselling. He has represented multinational and start-up companies in patent litigation in pharmaceutical, life sciences, among other areas. 

Robert earned a PhD at UC Berkeley in chemistry for his work in Dr. Kenneth Raymond’s laboratory on supramolecular nano-cages. Robert held a postdoctoral research position at The Scripps Research Institute and was a research scientist at a multinational medical diagnostics company, focusing on bioconjugation and macromolecular therapeutics and imaging agents (MRI and PET).

While in law school, he received the American Jurisprudence prize in Intellectual Property Strategy and in Partnership & LLC. He is a named co-inventor on a US patent and is a co-author of 10 peer-reviewed research publications. 

Robert's representative transactions include:

  • Astellas in a co-development and commercialization transaction with Adaptimmune  
  • Grail in its US$8 billion sale to Illumina 
  • Nestlé in its investment in Before Brands
  • Nestlé in its acquisition of a majority stake in Vital Proteins
  • Aduro Biotech in its merger with Chinook Therapeutics.
  • Harmony Biosciences in its initial public offering
  • Phathom Pharmaceuticals in its initial public offering
  • Inari Medical in its initial public offering
  • Other transactions and material agreements for numerous clients including:  
    • Ligand Pharmaceuticals 
    • Activ Surgical
    • Evoke Pharma
    • Aligos Therapeutics
    • Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (SOBI)
    • Zentalis Pharmaceuticals
    • PharmaPier
    • Nestlé
    • Underwriter representation in various IPOs and other offerings for Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, JP Morgan, Evercore, Cantor Fitzgerald, Bank of America, etc. 

Patent Prosecution / Counseling

  • Patent prosecution and counseling relating to medical devices, energy, and exercise equipment for academic institutions, start-ups, and Fortune 500 companies*
  • Freedom-to-operate analysis of chemical patents for clients in the semi-conductor materials and pharmaceutical space*

Patent Litigation

  • NuVasive in a patent infringement case concerning spine surgery in S.D. Cal.*
  • Illumina in various cases concerning DNA sequencing and microarray technology in S.D. Cal. and D. Del.*
  • GSK in D. Del. in a case concerning heart failure treatment*
  • Allergan in various cases concerning eye medication and dermal fillers in E.D. Tex. and C.D. Cal.*
  • Microsoft in patent infringement case in D. Utah*
  • Huawei in two patent infringement cases in S.D. California*

*Matters handled prior to joining Latham

Thought Leadership

  • “Precedential Decisions at the PTAB: An Endangered Species?” Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property, Volume 17, 2018
  • “The Public Paid for the Invention: Who Owns It?” Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 2012 Annual Review, Volume 27
  • “A Most Peculiar Application of the False Claims Act“ The Federal Bar Association Spring 2013 Newsletter, San Diego Chapter

Scientific Publications

  • “Imposition of chirality in a dinuclear triple-stranded helicate by ion pair formation.” Inorganic Chemistry 40 (10), 2001, 2216-2217
  • “Self-assembly of tetrahedral and trigonal antiprismatic clusters Fe-4(L-4)(4) and Fe-6(L-5)(6) on the basis of trigonal tris-bidentate chelators.” Chemistry-a European Journal 8 (2), 2002, 493-497
  • “Supramolecular assembly dynamics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99 (8), 2002, 4793-4796
  • “Self-Assembly.” Comprehensive Coordination Chemistry II, Elsevier, 2003 Chapter 6.3.2
  • “Large M4L4 (M = Al(III), Ga(III), In(III), Ti(IV)) tetrahedral coordination cages: an extension of symmetry-based design.” Inorganic Chemistry 44 (18), 2005, 6228-6239
  • “Supramolecular asymmetric induction in dinuclear triple stranded helicates.” Inorganic Chemistry 45 (3), 2006, 1130-1139
  • “Virus based nanoparticle as a platform for magnetic resonance imaging contrast enhancement.” Chemical Communications 12, 2007, 1269-1271
  • “Toxicology and pharmacokinetics of wild-type cowpea mosaic virus.” Journal of Controlled Release 120 (1), 2007, 41-50
  • “Folate mediated targeting of cowpea mosaic virus to tumor cells.” Chemistry and Biology, (14), 2007, 1152-1162
  • “Design and formation of a large, supramolecular cluster using 1,1′-binaphthyl ligands.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition (47), 2008, 6062-6064

Bar Qualification

  • California
  • US Patent and Trademark Office

Education

  • JD, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, 2012
    Certificate of Specialization in Business Law
  • PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2004
  • AB, Princeton University, 1998
    with honors

Languages Spoken

  • English
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
Law and Justice
June 27, 2022 Recognition

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Latham honored for securing a US$10.75 million damages verdict for client Philip Morris International in a patent infringement trial over vaping technology against R.J. Reynolds Vapor.