Sarah Perkins has a physics degree from Edinburgh University and is a Chartered Physicist. She qualified as a Chartered Patent Attorney and a European Patent Attorney in 1992 and has worked in private practice with various firms throughout her career. She joined Stevens Hewlett & Perkins in 1994 and became a Partner of the firm in 1996. Sarah is located in the London office where she specialises in patents covering engineering, electronics, telecoms, physics and software technologies. She has gained particular expertise in securing patent protection in the areas of MEMS, electronic imaging, optoelectronics, secure electronic data transfer for the banking sector and large scale parallel processing systems. Sarah has also prosecuted patents in mechanical engineering disciplines such as bearing design and automotive technology, and has acted as patent advisor in a number of successful actions involving patent infringement and validity in the UK, one of which involved a patent that had been drafted by her. She is a member of UNION and AIPPI.