Biography
Mr. Leak has 25 years of experience serving clients in the areas of patent/trademark prosecution, privacy and data security, and complex litigation.
A North Carolina native, Frank has been an active member of the North Carolina State Bar since 2001, and admitted to practice before the Western District of North Carolina (WDNC), Middle District of North Carolina (MDNC), and the Eastern District of North Carolina (EDNC) since 2002.
Frank is a registered patent attorney – registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) received in 2002.
A substantial focus of Frank’s current practice involves patent prosecution in areas including biotechnology, nucleic acid sequencing technologies, small molecule compounds, antibodies and vaccines, diagnostic instrumentation, and medical devices. Litigation is his first love, however, and Frank continues to litigate intellectual property and civil cases in federal and state courts, including the North Carolina Business Court. Clients also value Frank’s counsel in the areas of trademark prosecution, IP portfolio management, and strategic IP counseling. Additional IP related services Frank provides include transactional matters, such as drafting license, assignment, joint venture, and research collaboration agreements; IP due diligence; and opinions of counsel.
Frank received his CIPP-US certification in the spring of 2018 (lapsed), regularly advises clients on statutory and regulatory compliance, and develops terms of use, privacy policies, privacy notices, and internal privacy related policies and procedures.
Frank taught Patent Litigation at Wake Forest University – School of Law as an adjunct faculty member between 2015 and 2019 and he has given talks on intellectual property related subjects at various venues, including the North Carolina Bar Association Patent Litigation subsection, the Center for Creative Economy (Winston-Salem, NC), the North Carolina Biotech Center VentuRealization Group (Winston-Salem, NC), and the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine.
LEGAL PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
- Leak, F.W and Schroeder, T.B., Myriad Genetics – It’s Now Up to the Supremes, IP Links, March 8, 2012.
- Leak, F.W. and L.A. Lawson, University of Rochester v. G.D. Searle & Co., Inc. – A Setback to Reach-Through Claiming, Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal (BNA, Inc.), 66:1635 (2003).
- Leak, F.W. and McDermott, R.M., In Patent Cases, Winning or Losing Starts and Often Ends Here: The Markman Hearing, Trends in Litigation (A&B Client Advisory) (2002).
- Connor, M.S. and Leak, F.W., Challenges of Business Method Patent Enforcement – Extraterritoriality, The Computer & Internet Lawyer, 19:8 (2002).
- Presented the Federal Circuit Case Law Review CLE, CPTCLA Fall Meeting (2004).
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
- Leak, F.W., Tove, S. Parks, L.W., In yeast, upc2-1 confers a decrease in tolerance to LiCl and NaCl, which can be suppressed by the P-type ATPase encoded by ENA2, DNA Cell Biol., 1999 Feb; 18(2):133-9.
- Parks, L.W., Crowley, J.H., Leak, F.W., Smith, S.J., Tomeo, M.E, Use of sterol mutants as probes for sterol functions in the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Crit Rev Biochem Mol Biol., 1999; 34(6):399-404.
- Crowley, J.H., Leak, F.W., Sianna, K.V., Tove, S., Parks, L.W., A mutation in a purported regulatory gene affects control of sterol uptake in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, J Bacteriol. 1998 Aug; 180(16):4177-83.
- Palermo, L.M., Leak, F.W., Tove, S., Parks, L.W., Assessment of the essentiality of ERG genes late in ergosterol biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Curr Genet. 1997 Aug; 32(2):93-9.
- Crowley, J.H., Smith, S.J., Leak, F.W., Parks, L.W., Aerobic isolation of an ERG24 null mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, J Bacteriol., 1996 May; 178(10): 2991-3.
Frank Leak
Partner
Credentials
Admissions
- North Carolina
- U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)
Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – School of Law, J.D., 2001
North Carolina State University, M.S., Microbiology (Molecular Biology), 1997
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, B.A., American History, 1990
Prior Law Firm Experience
Alston & Bird, LLP
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP