A Boesen & Snow Attorney’s Uncommonly Technical Path Into Healthcare Law

Mohammed Saleem, J.D., an attorney at Boesen & Snow Law, brings an unusually technical foundation to his healthcare, regulatory, and intellectual property work. Before law school, he earned a physiology degree, and during law school, he completed a concurrent master’s in pharmaceutical chemistry and passed the patent bar. He is now pursuing a second master’s, in systems engineering, alongside his practice. Saleem is admitted to practice in Arizona (2024), is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Reg. No. 81,637), and is admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2025).

We sat down with Saleem to talk through his path into law, what a typical week practicing healthcare and intellectual property law looks like, and a closer look at where trademark and patent protection most often go wrong for growing businesses.

BSL: Walk us through your path into law. What led you here?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “It starts with a physiology degree at the University of Arizona. I graduated in three years, which meant putting my own coursework together along the way. Toward the end of college, a guest speaker came to one of my classes to talk about a new Master’s of Legal Studies program. I was already planning on a gap year before medical school, so I got curious. I talked it through with a family friend who was a torts professor, and she was the one who suggested I look at a JD instead, given my background. That was the first time I really considered law as a path. I ended up choosing Penn State Dickinson Law, largely because of their health law program. Coming from a healthcare background, that felt like familiar ground.”

BSL: You’ve got an unusually deep technical background, and now a second master’s in progress. What made you keep building on that?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “In my second year of law school, I took a class called Biotech and Pharmacy Law, and the professor told me I had a strong scientific background and would make a good patent lawyer. That stuck with me. I looked into it and found that a graduate degree in the life sciences, or an engineering background, is basically expected if you want to practice patent law seriously. I didn’t want to add another four-year degree after law school, so I found a program I could do at the same time. I earned a master’s in pharmaceutical chemistry through the University of Florida and did it full-time alongside law school. The last semester of my third year was the hardest, writing my thesis, finishing law school, and studying for the patent bar, all at once.

“I’m still adding to that. I’m currently working on a master’s in systems engineering at Johns Hopkins. A lot of healthcare innovation now runs through medical devices and digital health, and that’s an engineering problem as much as a life sciences one.”

BSL: What drew you to a healthcare-focused firm like Boesen & Snow?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “It ties back to wanting to be in a healthcare or pharmacy environment, working with clients I understand well. My background lends itself naturally to life sciences work. At my previous job, we were fairly specialized in mechanical, software, and electrical engineering patents, things like aerospace, semiconductors, and optics. I loved that work, but it was not suited to my background. I wanted to come back to an environment where my science background actually lined up with the clients I was serving.”

BSL: What does a typical week look like for you now?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “It is a wide range. Most of my work right now is healthcare regulatory work. That includes HIPAA advising and compliance, board of pharmacy, and other regulatory agency reporting requirements. I also help with transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and contract disputes. On the intellectual property side, I get involved whenever a question comes up about a GLP-1-related patent, and whether there is room to work around an existing portfolio. The major branded manufacturers in that space have generally built out substantial patent portfolios, and in-house teams to go with them, so that is usually a conversation about managing expectations as much as anything else.”

BSL: What should a business know about trademarks, and when does it actually make sense to get one?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “A trademark protects the name, logo, or slogan that identifies where a product or service comes from; it differs from a patent, which protects an invention, and a copyright, which protects creative work. For most healthcare and pharmacy businesses, it is the first intellectual property question that comes up, often before there is any invention to patent, simply because every business needs a name before it needs anything else.”

“One of the most basic requirements for a federal trademark is generally that you’re using the mark in interstate commerce, which usually means doing business in more than one state. A lot of clients come to me wanting to trademark a name for a business that only operates locally, in one state, and filings like that often run into trouble. On the other end, some people try to trademark a name before they’ve ever used it in commerce. You can file to reserve your place in line for a mark you intend to use, but you don’t actually receive the trademark until you can show you’re using it in commerce, and you’re given a limited window to do that. My advice is usually simple. Be in business first.”

BSL: What’s the most common trademark mistake you see business owners make?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “Overreaching on the description of goods or services. You can only protect a name in connection with what you actually offer. Descriptions also have to be specific. They cannot be vague, and they cannot just describe a future plan. I’ve seen filings where the description was essentially, ‘I plan on using this to start a business where we do this.’ That is never going to get approved.”

BSL: Once a business has a trademark, how do you go about enforcing it?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “It’s often simpler than people expect. In many cases, a trademark dispute never goes past a cease and desist letter, and many infringers choose to change course once they receive one. When that happens, there are often options that fall short of a full rebrand, like adopting a different trade name for that market. Sometimes two businesses end up with the same or a similar name but in completely different industries, where there’s no real chance a customer would confuse one for the other.

“If a dispute goes further, one option is a cancellation proceeding, where you challenge someone else’s registration directly. That is a real, formal proceeding in front of the trademark office, and it is known for being slow, expensive, and difficult to win, even with a strong case. I’ve been part of one. It’s a path that exists, but it’s not one I’d recommend unless there is no better option.”

BSL: How is a trademark actually different from a patent?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “The two protect different things entirely. A trademark protects a brand identifier, a name, logo, or slogan, so customers know who they’re buying from. A patent protects an invention itself, the mechanism or process behind a product or method. A growing healthcare business might need one, the other, or eventually both, depending on what it’s actually building.”

BSL: For someone who has never filed a patent, walk us through the process. What’s the biggest misconception?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “The first step is checking what already exists. A lot more prior patents are out there than people expect, and you’re looking for an actual difference in how the invention works, not a cosmetic difference like color. From there, it’s an invention disclosure, sitting down with the inventor to get the technical details, and then deciding between a provisional filing, which just holds your place in line for a year while you keep developing the idea, and the actual utility application, which requires disclosing every variation you can think of. Your claims are what you’re actually protecting.

“The biggest misconception is around timing. Once you’ve publicly disclosed an invention, there’s generally a limited window, often around a year, to file, and missing that window can mean losing your rights to it. A patent that issues despite an earlier public disclosure of the invention that was not disclosed to the USPTO is also much easier for someone to challenge and invalidate later in certain circumstances. I steer clients away from filing more often than people might expect, because you can end up with a patent that looks valid but isn’t worth very much.”

BSL: You’re admitted to practice before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. What does that involve, and why does it stand out?

Mohammed Saleem, J.D.: “The Federal Circuit is a specialized appellate court that generally hears patent and trademark cases, among other things. It’s one step below the Supreme Court, and it does not hear very many cases each year, especially not patent cases. Getting there generally involves a specific path. If the patent office rejects an application and the applicant appeals, the case typically goes to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board first, and from there, a further appeal can go to the Federal Circuit.

“It is a genuinely rare experience for an attorney to argue in front of that court, and even rarer in a patent matter specifically. The briefing is extensive, and the standard of review generally favors the board’s original decision, so the odds are not in an appellant’s favor going in. Even so, it is one of the more meaningful experiences you can have as a patent attorney, and it is not something most attorneys, even patent attorneys, get to do.”