Richard Frith CPA, EPA, ETMA, BSc, PhD, CChem, MRSC

Principal

Richard is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney, a registered European Patent Attorney, and a registered European Trade Mark and Design Attorney.

Richard has a 1st class BSc degree with Honours in Chemistry from King’s College London and a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Before entering the patent profession in 1996 with Eric Potter Clarkson (now Potter Clarkson LLP), he worked as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry for five years. He won the Moss Prize in 1998 after obtaining the highest overall mark the previous year in examinations relating to UK and overseas patent law and subsequently qualified in 2000. In the same year he moved to Appleyard Lees where he became a partner in 2005. He left that firm in 2007 to establish Alchemie IP Ltd.

Richard specializes in chemical, materials science, healthcare, pharmaceutical and medical related inventions; he also handles mechanical inventions. He has acted as a representative for a number of leading UK and international companies and has extensive experience of pharmaceutical matters, including medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical formulations, polymer chemistry, coatings and paints, fuel additives and catalysts, as well as general healthcare formulations and consumer products. In addition to filing and prosecuting patent applications, Richard has extensive experience of representing patentees and opponents in opposition and appeal proceedings before the Opposition Divisions and Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office. Richard has handled other contentious issues by advising on the scope and validity of 3rd party patents and providing clients with infringement clearance on new products. He has also acted as an expert witness on European patent law in litigation proceedings in Canada for a multi-national pharmaceutical company.