Dr. Ellinger is a Principal in the Twin Cities office of Fish & Richardson P.C., one of the country's largest intellectual property law firms. Dr. Ellinger's practice emphasizes patent prosecution, opinions, due diligence investigations, licensing and counseling in the medical biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, diagnostic, pharmaceutical, and medical science fields. His practice has involved subject matter such as genomics, proteomics, gene therapy, xenotransplantation, transgenic animals, transgenic plants, metabolic engineering, immunoassays, nucleic acid-based assays, antisense technology, nucleic acid analogues, microarrays, vaccines, stem cells, medical devices, food science, and potential treatments for diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, allergy, arthritis, diabetes, and Alzheimer's Disease.

Prior to entering the legal profession, Dr. Ellinger was a tenured associate professor at Southern Illinois University. He spent a sabbatical leave in 1983-1984 as a Visiting Scientist at Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, where he worked on an amphibian version of the ras oncogene and associated repetitive DNA elements.

Dr. Ellinger received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Augsburg College (Biology) and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota (Developmental Biology). Dr. Ellinger received his J.D. from Harvard University in 1989, where he was the founding Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Dr. Ellinger has authored a variety of scientific and legal publications, and is a faculty member for the Patent Resources Group course "Biotechnology Patents, Licensing and FDA Practice." He serves on the Board of Directors of the Memorial Blood Centers of Minnesota and the Minnesota Biotechnology Association.