Pivotal to the development and commercialisation of the Prima BioMed product portfolio is strong intellectual property protection for the underlying technology and the product opportunities. Prima BioMed has secured, under license from the Austin Research Institute, ten patent families at various stages of prosecution. A further three families of patents have been created and are owned by Prima's subsidiaries. These patents are being prosecuted worldwide in the major market jurisdictions to maximise market coverage and underpin future incomes from licensing agreements.

As of May 2006 the patent portfolio under management contains 23 granted patents and 29 applications under prosecution.

In 2003 Prima engaged Blake Dawson Waldron's Intellectual Property team in Melbourne, Australia to coordinate the consolidation and prosecution and maintenance of all of Prima's licensed and owned intellectual property from the Austin Research Institute. This allowed for a new policy of 100% project ownership. 

Current advice on patents and intellectual property is managed by Davies Collison Cave and Cooley Godward Kronish in the US.