Santa Clara University

Partner
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati 

Vern Norviel is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he leads the patents and innovation counseling practice. Vern has more than two decades of experience in formulating successful strategies for life science companies and the development of their IP programs. He represents a wide variety of companies, as well as venture capital firms, in areas such as therapeutics, diagnostics, nanotechnology, genomics, proteomics, and personalized medicine.

Before joining the firm in 2003, Vern was the general counsel and corporate secretary of

Perlegen Sciences, Inc., a start-up biotechnology company that scans the entire human genome for important therapeutic and diagnostic products. Previously, as senior vice president and general counsel, he was an early employee of Affymetrix, the biotechnology company that pioneered the development of DNA chip technology. He also was a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew in Palo Alto.

During his career, Vern has authored or prosecuted more than 15 patents that have been litigated in the United States and abroad, and has overseen intellectual property lawsuits throughout the world.