Dr Fiona Pringle | Principal

Fiona assists clients in patent matters, from filing through to grant, in New Zealand, Australia and overseas. Acknowledged for her excellence in client service, Fiona was named the 2022 Client Choice Award winner - Patent Agent in New Zealand.

Expertise

Fiona has over 15 years’ experience acting in all areas of patent prosecution, including appearing for applicants in examination hearings before the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ). She has also been involved in opposition proceedings. Her focus is mainly on the life sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceutical areas, but Fiona has experience with animal health, food and beverage and a number of other areas.

Fiona also assists clients with plant variety rights matters.

Experience

Fiona is a registered patent attorney and is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor in New Zealand. She has a PhD in microbiology (focussing on virology) and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for three years.

Upon returning to New Zealand from her post-doctoral position, Fiona spent some time as a science policy advisor on biotechnology and related issues in a government department. Fiona joined Baldwins (now AJ Park) in 2005 and loves being involved at the forefront of technologies and innovations in areas that make a real difference.

Accolades

named the winner of the Lexology Client Choice Awards for Patent Agent, New Zealand 2022
named a global leader for patents in the 2021 edition of Who's Who Legal
recognised in the 2023 and 2024 editions of The Best Lawyers in New Zealand™ with a specialty in Biotechnology Law

Services

Expertise

Qualifications

BSc (Hons), University of Otago (1994)
PhD (Microbiology), University of Otago (2000)
LLB, Victoria University of Wellington (2012)
Admitted as a Barrister & Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand
Registered Patent Attorney (New Zealand and Australia)

Dr Fiona Pringle 's insights

Article \ 15 Nov 2023

Post-acceptance amendments in New Zealand

Post-acceptance amendments to a patent application in New Zealand are only allowed in certain circumstances and require careful drafting of the amendment to ensure it meets the relevant criteria. This article considers when an amendment might be permitted.

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News \ 16 Nov 2022

Q&A with Dr Fiona Pringle, Lexology Client Choice Award winner

Dr Fiona Pringle is the 2022 Lexology Client Choice winner for Intellectual Property - Patent Agents & Attorneys (New Zealand). With over 2,500 legal practitioners nominated by their clients for the award, Fiona’s experience, know-how and excellent client service stood out from the crowd.

Article \ 20 Jun 2022

Patent (examination) pending – the chemistry/biotech backlog at IPONZ

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) has recently updated timeframes for issuing a first examination report for patent applications where ordinary examination has been requested.

Article \ 15 May 2018

A question of support

This article discusses two patent decisions in New Zealand which consider the application of the Patent Act 2013’s requirement that the claim or claims of a patent be “supported by the matter disclosed in the complete specification”.[1] “Supported by” is a change from the “fair basis” wording of the previous Patents Act 1953. Although the original Bill as introduced to Parliament in 2008 retained the fair basis wording, it was replaced with “supported by” as the Bill progressed through the legislative process [2].

Article \ 5 Apr 2018

Amended patent, trade mark and design regulations in force in…

Amendments to the New Zealand Patents, Trade Mark and Design Regulations have now entered into force. The amendments address a number of issues that resulted from changes made to New Zealand's patent laws when the Patents Act 2013 came into force. The key changes are summarised below.

Article \ 22 Oct 2015

What’s your priority (date for your patent claim)?

When a complete patent application is filed, it typically claims priority to one (or more) earlier applications (a priority application) filed up to 12 months earlier.

Article \ 21 Oct 2015

Terribly sorry, Sir Walter…your plant variety denomination can’t be a…

A recent decision of the Federal Court of Australia highlights why you should select a denomination for your plant variety right that is different from the name used to market the variety.

Principal \ Auckland

Anton Blijlevens

Special Counsel \ Wellington

Dr Christine Egan

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