Sara L. Patak is a partner-elect in the Boulder office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Her practice focuses on patent prosecution and intellectual property counseling, serving clients in a wide range of technology fields, including the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

During law school, Sara was an extern for licensing officers in the invention transfer group at UC Irvine Applied Innovation, where she assisted in the drafting and negotiating of university patent licenses and inter-institutional agreements, as well as conducted patentability and marketability assessments for UC Irvine intellectual property. Under the direction of an attorney supervisor, Sara also counseled several pro bono clients in the UC Irvine Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Law Clinic relating to copyright, patent, and trademark protection.

Sara gained extensive experience in cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry through her graduate and undergraduate research. During her graduate studies in the Tracy L. Johnson laboratory, she utilized cell culture models to study the post-transcriptional regulation of the transcription factor, Gcr1, in response to glucose availability. As an undergraduate, Sara's academic research in the Stephen Mayfield laboratory focused on agrobacterium-mediated transformation in algae for nutraceutical applications. She also gained additional research experience through an internship at Sapphire Energy, where she assisted in the initial characterization of a novel algal strain. In addition, during an internship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Sara studied the role of the invasive diatom, B.biddulphiana, and its impact on reef ecology, as well as investigated paternal genetic contributors in leopard shark populations.