Brings Significant Trial Experience to Highly Regarded Patent Litigation Practice
NEW YORK, NY – September 8, 2009. Patterson Belknap is pleased to announce that Michael F. Buchanan, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, has become a Partner of the firm, joining the Intellectual Property Litigation and White Collar Defense and Investigations Teams. A skilled trial lawyer, he has tried several complex cases to verdict and argued multiple appeals.
Mr. Buchanan’s practice will focus on high-stakes intellectual property litigation, particularly pharmaceutical industry patent matters. His recent experience includes serving as one of the lead attorneys in a complex federal patent trial on behalf of a major pharmaceutical company.
In his more than nine years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Buchanan served as Chief of the District’s Securities and Health Care Fraud Unit, focusing on the investigation and prosecution of criminal violations of the federal securities and health care fraud statutes. These matters involved health care kickbacks, off-label marketing and Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance fraud. He was involved in some of the most significant and high-profile securities and health care fraud prosecutions that the District brought, including overseeing the trial team that obtained the securities fraud conviction of Walter Forbes, the Chairman of the Board of Cendant Corporation. He also assisted in overseeing compliance with the Deferred Prosecution Agreements entered into by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Mr. Buchanan also served as the Deputy Chief of the District’s Criminal Division and as the Chief of its Terrorism Unit. His extensive experience in enforcement will also reinforce the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Team which currently includes a former Attorney General of the State of New Jersey and the former acting head of the Southern District’s Major Crimes Unit.
Prior to practicing law, Mr. Buchanan spent four years as a structural engineer at Grumman Aerospace. He then served as a law clerk at a boutique intellectual property law firm where he drafted and prosecuted patents. Mr. Buchanan became a member of the patent bar and a registered patent agent. He also clerked for U.S. District Judge Franklin S. Van Antwerpen in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Firm Managing Partner Bob LoBue said, “We are happy to welcome Mike to the firm. His combination of skills in the courtroom and in the engineering field will bring a valuable insight to our clients, particularly in complex patent litigation.”
Mr. Buchanan received his J.D. cum laude in 1992 from Brooklyn Law School and then clerked for U.S. District Judge Franklin S. Van Antwerpen in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Columbia University in 1984.