Gavin provides strategic advice to clients in relation to their patent portfolios, including advising on aligning IP and commercial strategies, and maximising the commercial value of IP. He drafts and prosecutes patent applications in biotechnology and pharmaceutical related fields, advises on patent validity and infringement, provides freedom to operate advice and conducts patent oppositions.

Having been awarded the University Medal Gavin completed his PhD at the CSIRO Division of Biomolecular Engineering in Sydney before taking up an NHMRC CJ Martin Postdoctoral Fellowship in the UK at the University of Oxford, Department of Biochemistry, working in the field of genetic recombination. After three years in Europe, including short stints at medical research centres in Japan and Norway, Gavin returned to Australia. He is the author of numerous research papers in peer-reviewed international journals and has contributed to texts in the fields of antibiotic resistance and molecular microbiology. He continues to lecture widely on biotechnology patenting issues. He has won numerous awards for his research, including the inaugural Australian Society for Microbiology Research Trust Award. Gavin joined Davies Collison Cave as a partner in 2006 having previously been a principal at another Australian IP firm.

Gavin manages the firms life science group in the Sydney office and represents many local and international clients in the protection of inventions in all aspects of biotechnology including: medical therapeutics and diagnostics; biochemical, genetic and molecular biological markers; microbiology; immunology; transgenic organisms; nutraceuticals and food supplements; and medical and molecular biological research methods.

Gavin also has expertise in matters relating to devices for use in medical treatment, diagnostics and molecular biology research.