Umme Salamah Tyebjee

Umme Salamah Tyebjee is a Legal Director in the Innovation & Patents practice in Dubai. Her primary practice area is Patent Law. She has both a legal background and a chemical background in healthcare and life sciences, and assists clients with innovation, patents and industrial property (3IP) throughout the innovation cycle, including patents, industrial designs, utility models, trade secrets and confidentiality, copyright, technology transfer, 3IP valuation and 3IP auditing.

She assists and advises clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters in the Innovation & Patents department. She supports the patent prosecution of life sciences and pharmaceutical inventions worldwide, including MENA, US, Europe, Canada and the Far East, assisting clients in the prosecution of patent applications, analysing Office Actions, preparing responses to Office Actions, drafting patent applications (provisional and non-provisional), providing patentability opinions, managing IP portfolios, project management, and client relations and communication.

She also assists clients in a wide range of 3IP and commercial-related matters, including advising on regional and international patent protection strategies, patentability, freedom-to-operate and the validity/infringement of inventions. She prepares various legal advices and agreements, such as due diligences, technology transfer and other innovation-related agreements, and licensing agreements, and advises on patent and industrial design infringement matters in the MENA region and dispute resolution matters involving 3IP conflicts. She supports a variety of clients in the private and public sectors, such as governmental institutions and research universities, both foreign and local.

She also assists and advises pharmaceutical companies on healthcare regulations in the Middle East, providing 3IP advice on data exclusivity, marketing exclusivity and marketing approvals in view of the ministerial decisions and regulations for the GCC countries and MENA region.

Prior to joining Al Tamimi, she was working as a Patent Associate at a reputed law firm.

Her recent experience includes advising international pharmaceutical companies on healthcare regulations in the Middle East and providing IP advice on data exclusivity in view of the ministerial decisions and regulations for Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; advising on the patentability of medical treatment claims, surgical and diagnostic methods, and polymorphs in the GCC region; advising healthcare sector providers on customs laws in the UAE and clearance issues in the context of refusal by customs authorities to clear medicines and medical devices; and providing IP ownership advice to various universities and professors on who owns the IP with respect to various scenarios under the UAE IP Law.

She has also drafted contractual agreements, NDAs, employment agreements and IP agreements including licence agreements and R&D collaboration agreements; advised and assisted a pharmaceutical company in patent infringement and invalidation cases in the UAE and other MENA countries; assisted a multinational company in an industrial design infringement case in the UAE; drafted IP policies for local universities; and assisted local, regional and foreign clients in patent protection strategies and in prosecuting their patent applications throughout the MENA region.

She has represented a large number of regional universities, enterprises and R&D entities in the protection of their innovations and the management of their patent portfolios worldwide in various sectors of technology, and prepared and advised on innovation strategies for many local universities and local inventors and entrepreneurs.

She holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from ILS Law College, Pune, India (2015) and a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Biochemistry & Life Sciences from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, India (2012). She was admitted as an Indian Patent Attorney in 2017 and as an Indian Advocate to the Bar Council of Goa & Maharashtra in 2015. She speaks English, Hindi and Gujarati.