About Alan J. Morrison
Alan J. Morrison founded the Law Offices of Alan J. Morrison in 2014. Prior to that, he was a partner at the New York firms of Cozen O’Connor; Cohen, Pontani, Lieberman & Pavane LLP; and Cooper & Dunham LLP. He also served as in-house counsel at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Alan counsels his clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical fields regarding patents and related transactional law. In that regard, he has considerable experience rendering opinions on patent infringement and invalidity, as well as patentability, inventorship, inequitable conduct, and the Hatch-Waxman Act. His experience also encompasses evaluating patent portfolios, and preparing and negotiating pharmaceutical and biotech contracts. These contracts include patent licenses, joint development agreements, research collaboration agreements, feasibility study agreements, and technology transfer agreements.
Since his practice began, Alan has engaged in all aspects of U.S. and international patent prosecution in the biotech and pharmaceutical fields. He has represented corporations, universities, and research institutes in protecting groundbreaking inventions such as recombinant antibody drugs, catalytic nucleic acids, DNA microarrays, diagnostic methods and kits, pharmaceutical formulations, stem cell-based methods, and small molecule drug synthesis.
In his more than 25 years of practice, Alan has counseled CEO’s, venture capitalists and prominent scientists, and has represented some of the world’s largest, most prestigious and most innovative companies and institutions. He was selected as a Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers® of Thomson Reuters.
Alan holds an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. There, he teaches a graduate course called “Biotechnology Law”, and a related graduate course called “Ethics in Biopharmaceutical Patent and Regulatory Law.” These courses, which he designed, are the first of their kind at Columbia.
Alan is also the author of Biotechnology Law: A Primer for Scientists (Columbia University Press, 2020).
In addition to teaching at Columbia, Alan has lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa on various topics in patent and regulatory law, and has written and spoken on controversial topics such as gene patenting and biosimilars law. He is co-chair emeritus and a founding member of the advisory board for the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. He has also served on the advisory boards of the Stem Cell Partnering Series and the Columbia University Biotechnology Association. Before studying law, he studied Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute in China.
Alan earned a B.A. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984; an M.S. in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1986; an M.Phil. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia University in 1988; and a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University in 1992.