Nicholas Halkowski

Nicholas Halkowski

Associate

Nicholas Halkowski is an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where his practice focuses on life science patent litigation, especially in Hatch-Waxman Act litigation. Nicholas’s experience includes leading fact discovery, taking and defending depositions, arguing motions, preparing witnesses for trial, and post-trial brief writing with considerations for appeal.

Prior to re-joining the firm, Nicholas clerked for the Honorable Judge Raymond T. Chen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Before law school, he worked as an engineer at a Fortune 100 chemical manufacturing company.

Experience

Education

J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law, 2020
Cum Laude, Order of the Coif, High Tech Law Journal
B.S., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2013

Admissions

Bar of the District of Columbia
State Bar of California
U.S. Court of Federal Claims
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Credentials

Education

J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law, 2020
Cum Laude, Order of the Coif, High Tech Law Journal
B.S., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2013

Admissions

Bar of the District of Columbia
State Bar of California
U.S. Court of Federal Claims
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Select Publications

Co-author, “Distinguishing and Predicting Drug Patents,” (41) Nature Biotech 317–321, 2023
Co-author, “Parsing the Impact of Alice and the PEG,” Patently-O Law Journal, 2020

Insights

Select Publications

Co-author, “Distinguishing and Predicting Drug Patents,” (41) Nature Biotech 317–321, 2023
Co-author, “Parsing the Impact of Alice and the PEG,” Patently-O Law Journal, 2020

Recent Insights

Alerts

In a unanimous opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Amarin, the developer of Vascepa® (reference listed drug), failed to plausibly allege that Hikma actively induced infringement of Amarin’s method of use patents based on Hikma’s statements and materials related to its generic version of Vascepa®, reversing the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit). Although much of the import of this decision will not be fully understood until lower courts interpret this ruling, the Supreme Court provided guidance regarding one of the requirements for alleging a claim for induced patent infringement—one must plausibly allege that the defendant actively encouraged infringing use, not merely whether others could plausibly read statements by the defendant as instructions to infringe.

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Alerts

On April 16, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the court) issued a precedential decision in Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbH v. Eli Lily and Company, determining that the claims of Teva’s U.S. Patent Nos. 8,586,045 (the ’045 patent), 9,884,907 (the ’907 patent), and 9,884,908 (the ’908 patent) (collectively, the Headache Patents) relating to methods of reducing headache by administration of humanized anti-CGRP antagonist antibodies are not invalid for lack of written description or enablement. The decision reversed a district court’s judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) decision concluding otherwise, and reinstated the jury’s findings that Eli Lilly’s Emgality® product willfully infringed the Headache Patents.

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