Rita Nissim

Rita Nissim is an Associate in Bird & Bird’s London Intellectual Property Group, focusing on Patent Law. She has a background in Physical Chemistry, specifically electrochemistry, and focuses primarily on large-scale telecoms patent litigation.

She has experience in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. During her legal career, she has worked with clients from a variety of sectors, from chemical and mechanical engineering to computing and telecoms, and gained experience in both contentious and non-contentious IP matters, from patent litigation to IP licensing and research collaboration agreements.

Prior to completing her legal education and training, Rita completed an M.Chem. and D.Phil. in Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and then spent a few years working in technology transfer. She was a Technology Licensing Executive at Imperial Innovations, the technology transfer team of Imperial College London, where she worked on the commercialisation of inventions and patent portfolios of departments such as Mechanical Engineering and the Dyson Robotics Lab. This role exposed her to the commercial side of licensing, which she finds particularly useful when working on FRAND matters.

At Imperial Innovations, she also held positions within the Patent & Licence Management and the Engineering IP teams, gaining well-rounded experience in the development and exploitation of patent portfolios, including work with inventors specialising in self-driving cars, earthquake-resistant structures and advanced aluminium hot forming.