Confirmed Speakers

UPDATED November 19, 2019

Below is the current list of confirmed speakers (in alphabetical order) for the 2020 IPWatchdog® Annual Meeting & Conference, which will take place from March 15-18, 2020, at the Renaissance Dallas Richardson.

 

 

Meredith “Mimi” Addy is an intellectual property litigator with over 25 years of litigation experience. She has handled more than 30 cases before trial courts and argued more than 40 appeals to the Federal Circuit. She has held leadership positions at several AmLaw100 firms and is a recipient of many awards and honors. Addy is currently a partner at AddyHart, P.C. Addy has testified before Congress to address issues relating to the Federal Circuit and the state of patent law. She has been a member of the Federal Circuit’s Advisory Council and a member of the board of directors of the Federal Circuit Bar Association. Addy is also a founder of the Richard Linn American Inn of Court, which is directed to intellectual property, and served as its first president. Addy has also been recognized as one of the most influential women in IP law by Law360.

Shawn Ambwani is COO, SVP of Legal, and Co-FoMnder of Unified Patents. Shawn has co-authored papers on PTAB analytics and procedures which have been published in law reviews affiliated with the University of Chicago and Northwestern among others. Prior to founding Unified, he was VP of Licensing and Business Development at Intertrust Technologies, Inc. responsible for patent and technology licensing programs with over $500 million in revenue. Prior to that he founded or was a senior executive at companies which have gone IPO. EVP & GM, Platform Divison at Nexstreaming (KOSDAQ: 139670) and Co-Founder, VP of Sales and Business Development at Envivio (NASDAQ; ENVI / purchased by Ericsson). Shawn has a JD/MBA from Boston University and a BS in Mathematics from UCLA. He is an active member of the California Bar.

James Aquilina is a Member of the Intellectual Property practice group at Quarles & Brady LLP. James is widely recognized in the field of U.S. design law, which regards the intersection of design patents, trade dress, and copyrights in useful articles. He is currently the Chair of the Industrial Designs Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and is a frequent speaker, lecturer, and academic contributor on design rights topics. He has extensive practice experience in all aspects of U.S. intellectual property law and regularly counsels clients in the areas of utility and design patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law, with emphases on rights procurement, portfolio development and management, rights enforcement, and licensing.

Russell Binns is CEO for Allied Security Trust, a Delaware Statutory Trust that identifies, analyzes and purchases high-technology patents being sold on the market. Binns has over 20 years’ experience with all facets of Intellectual Property, including global IP strategy, litigation, licensing, M&A, patent prosecution, trademark oppositions and prosecution, commercial contracts, open source, government affairs, and IP department management.Prior to AST, Binns served as head of IP Law, Litigation, and Licensing for Avaya Inc., a global leader in telecommunications. Responsible for all aspects of Avaya’s worldwide intellectual property legal operations, including patent procurement and portfolio management, intellectual property monetization, IP litigation, IP transactional matters, trademarks, open source, and management of both internal and external legal counsel performing such functions. Prior to joining Avaya, he was an IP litigator with Goodwin Procter in New York and Boston, and before that was with an IP boutique, Weingarten, Schurgin, Gagnebin & Hayes in Boston, doing transactional, patent prosecution and litigation work.

Jeffrey Blumenfeld is a Partner with Lowenstein Sandler LLP, where he serves as Chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Trade Regulation practice group. With more than 35 years of government and private practice experience Jeff has an in-depth knowledge of competition principles, technology, regulation, and economics.Jeff represents companies and their investors on competition issues, including those at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property. Beginning his career with more than a decade at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for DC, Jeff has first chaired more than 60 jury trials and has argued more than 20 appellate cases. As Assistant Chief of the Special Regulated Industries Section of the Antitrust Division, Jeff supervised investigative and trial staffs in complex matters in the financial services and telecommunications industries. While in private practice, Jeff was called back to the Antitrust Division several times to work with trial staffs in developing complex cases, including those that became US v Microsoft and US v MasterCard and Visa.

Carole Boelitz is Vice President of Intellectual Property for Zume, Inc. She is a practicing corporate and patent attorney with experience in all aspects of intellectual property protection, strategy and law. Ms. Boelitz has experience as general counsel for a subsidiary of large corporation, including outside counsel management, international employment, debt recovery, privacy, anti-corruption, and open source. Prior to joining Zume, she was Associate General Counsel and Chief IP Counsel for Terra Power, a nuclear energy technology company based in Bellevue, Washington. Prior to that she served as Assistant General Counsel for Microsoft Corporation.

Lynne Borchers is a Founding Partner with Sage Patent Group. Lynne has been practicing law since 1991.  Her practice is focused on patent and other intellectual property matters involving a diverse array of technologies including semiconductor devices, materials and products, telecommunications systems and devices, computer technology, and a wide variety of products and systems.  She helps companies with complex patent issues involving patent preparation, prosecution, litigation and counseling.  As first chair, she has litigated a large number of patent and trademark disputes in various U.S. district courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Prior to co-founding Sage Patent Group, Lynne was a shareholder and Managing Partner of Myers Bigel, P.A.  Before her legal career, she was an electrical engineer at Grumman Aircraft Systems and at Riverside Research Institute in the areas of design and integration of radar and electronic countermeasures systems.

Kurt Brasch is Head of Patent Transactions and Patent Policy at Uber. He closed more than 30 bilateral deals in 2017 and 2018, and launched and managed Uber’s UP3 Patent Purchase Program in April 2017. In September 2018 Mr. Brasch was ranked 35th in IAM’s Top 40 Global Market Makers. Before joining Uber, Mr. Brasch led strategic initiatives for Google’s transactions team and headed up multiple patent license negotiations, including the 2014 Cisco cross-license. He was named one of the Top 10 IP Personalities by IAM in 2015 for developing and leading Google’s Patent Purchase Promotion (PPP) and Patent Starter Program. Mr. Brasch also worked with the Allied Security Trust to design and launch the IP3 community purchase program in 2016 that followed on from the success of Google’s PPP. Prior to Google, Mr. Brasch was director of outbound patent licensing at Motorola Mobility.

Courtenay Brinckerhoff is a Partner and Intellectual Property Lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. Over the past 20 years, Ms. Brinckerhoff has represented clients before the U.S. Patent Office, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and has been involved in complex patent matters, including a four party interference, Inter Partes Reexaminations, Inter Partes Reviews, and ANDA litigation. Ms. Brinckerhoff received the IP Distinguished Alumni Award from George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School in April 2017. She was named JD Supra Readers’ Choice 2017 Top Author in the categories of pharmaceutical industry and patents for her work as editor and primary author of the PharmaPatents blog. She has been recognized among IAM Patent 1000 – The World’s Leading Patent Practitioners (2014 – 2016) for patent prosecution. She also was named one of the Top Women in IP by Managing IP and an IP Star by Managing IP in 2015.

Christopher V. Carani, Esq. is a Partner at the Chicago-based IP law firm of McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd. practicing in all areas of IP with particular emphasis on design law, which focuses on the protection of the appearance of products using a strategic combination of design rights, utility patents, trade dress and copyrights.  He is widely recognized as a leading authority in the field of design law having published and lectured in the field for over 20 years.  Chris has extensive experience litigating design law cases, including high profile matters before U.S. district courts, the Federal Circuit, U.S. Supreme Court and the ITC.  In 2019, Chris was named to the IAM Strategy 300 – The World’s Leading IP Strategists. In 2018, IAM Magazine included Chris in its IAM Patent 1000 referring to him as one of the U.S.’s “pre-eminent design law experts.” Chris is the current chair of the AIPPI Committee on Designs, and past chair of both AIPLA and ABA Design Rights Committees. Chris is current vice-chair of AIPPI-US. Chris is on faculty at Northwestern University School of Law and as an Adjunct Professor teaching IP Law & Policy.  His new book “Design Rights: Functionality and Scope of Protection,” published by Wolters Kluwer N.V., is the seminal work on these contentious and decisive issues.

James Carmichael is a former Administrative Patent Judge on the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (now the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) and the Founder of Carmichael IP. Jim represents inventors and patent challengers before the PTO in patent prosecution and inter partes review proceedings. Patexia named Carmichael IP the top performing firm on behalf of patent owners in IPR proceedings in 2019, with Jim himself coming in #3 out of 3,462 attorneys. Jim also regularly serves as an expert witness on PTO prosecution and post-grant procedures. Before becoming a Judge, Jim served for five years as an Associate Solicitor of the PTO. In that capacity, he represented the agency in federal court litigation and argued more than thirty cases at the Federal Circuit. The cases Jim handled included matters involving both patentability and reexamination. He was also Coordinator of attorney discipline proceedings while in the Solicitors Office at the PTO and speaks regularly on ethics.

Louis Carbonneau is the Founder and CEO of Tangible IP LLC. Mr. Carbonneau is a recognized expert in intellectual property with 30 years of professional experience in the U.S., Canadian and international markets. He is a former patent litigator with a national IP boutique firm and the former General Manager of IP Licensing at Microsoft Corporation where he spent 15 years. At Microsoft, he was also the lead business and intellectual property legal counsel to various business units and to the Microsoft Research organization worldwide, while leading the International IP team. Intellectual Assets Management (IAM) recently nominated him for the 8th consecutive year as one of the World’s Leading Intellectual Property Strategists. Mr. Carbonneau is also a Venture Partner and strategic advisor to Cycle Capital Management, an early stage clean tech venture capital firm with close to $300M under management, and a Special Consultant for IP Strategies & Licensing to one of the largest startup incubators in Canada. He also sits on the Board of Directors for a few startups with disruptive technologies in the clean technology sector.

Megan Carpenter is the Dean of the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. Dean Carpenter is an internationally known expert in intellectual property, with particular interests in entrepreneurship, branding, and the arts. Prior to joining UNH Law, Dean Carpenter was founder and co-director of the Center for Law and Intellectual Property at Texas A&M University School of Law, where she also served as Professor of Law and Faculty Director of three intellectual property and entrepreneurship-related clinical programs. Dean Carpenter has extensive experience in institution-building; her talent for driving initiatives from concept to execution has helped to establish successful programs both within law schools and universities generally. She has spearheaded the creation of innovative academic programs, including experiential learning initiatives, joint degree programs, study abroad, regular conferences and symposia, certificate programs, and interdisciplinary programs with various colleges across university campuses. She writes and publishes in the area of intellectual property and innovation, including the book, Evolving Economies: The Role of Law in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She has written multiple book chapters and published works in the Hastings Law Journal, Fordham Law Review, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, and the Yale Journal of Human Rights and Development.

Elvir Causevic, Ph.D., is Managing Director and Co-Head of the IP Tech Advisory for Houlihan Lokey. Dr. Causevic was formerly the founder and CEO of Black Stone IP, a boutique investment bank focused on valuing and trading Tech+IP assets, which was acquired by Houlihan Lokey in 2017. Prior to Black Stone, he was instrumental in the MIPS semiconductors $350 million patent transaction while he served as the Head of IP Strategy Practice at Ocean Tomo. Before Ocean Tomo, Dr. Causevic founded several industrial, medical, and high-tech businesses, raising over $50 million in premier venture capital, two of which were ultimately acquired by Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Causevic is a named inventor on more than 20 patents and patent applications and was a J.W. Gibbs Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at Yale University. Dr. Causevic holds a B.S., an M.S., and a Doctor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Brad Close is Executive Vice President, Licensing, Transpacific IP. Brad has been a patent attorney for over 20 years, and a patent broker for the past 12.  He has transacted on a large variety of IP deals, across the US, Europe and Asia.  He has also worked with clients on general portfolio structuring and strategy.  Brad has spoken on such topics as patent brokering, deal making pitfalls and patent monetization. He is a graduate of Franklin Pierce Law Center, with both a Masters of Intellectual Property and a JD.

Carlo Cotrone is Senior IP Counsel at Baker Hughes, a GE company (“BHGE”). As lead IP counsel for three BHGE business units, he manages the development and execution of offensive and defensive IP strategies, provides IP and general corporate advice, and negotiates agreements with licensees, customers, and suppliers. He also is Adjunct Professor of Law at University of Houston Law Center, and a frequent conference speaker and blog contributor on topics such as IP strategy and asset management, legal ethics, collaboration and innovation strategies for law firms and corporate legal departments, and professional development. Carlo is the inventor on two United States patents directed to digital sheet music technology. Previously, he practiced law at several firms on the East Coast and in the Midwest, most recently as a partner.

Shana K. Cyr, Ph.D., is a Partner and Patent Attorney with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, where she represents pharmaceutical and biotech clients in complex patent litigations before the U.S. district courts, contentious proceedings before the USPTO, and appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Dr. Cyr’s patent litigation practice focuses on Hatch-Waxman litigations related to abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) and 505(b)(2) applications, as well as litigations under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) related to biosimilars.  Dr. Cyr also provides strategic counseling on patent infringement, validity, and enforceability, as well as issues at the intersection of patent and FDA law.  Dr. Cyr previously served as judicial law clerk to the Honorable Kimberly A. Moore at the Federal Circuit and as legal intern to the Honorable Noel L. Hillman at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Todd Dickinson, a Senior Partner with Polsinelli, is a former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Todd has also been Chief IP Counsel for two Fortune 50 companies, with management responsibility for all IP, including management of extensive patent and trademark portfolios. Todd has also served as the Executive Director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), where he played a key role in the drafting and passage of the America Invents Act and the subsequent PTO rules. Todd has been recognized by IAMMagazine as one of the World’s Leading IP Strategists (2016) and was inducted into the IP Hall of Famein 2012. He has been recognized as one of the 50 Most Influential Peoplein IP by Managing Intellectual Property numerous times.

Tracy-Gene Durkin is a Partner with Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, PLLC. Simply stated, she is widely regarded as the preeminent authority on design patents in the United States, and has been hailed by Intellectual Asset Management magazine as the “country’s leading authority on design patents”. She heads Stern Kessler’s Mechanical and Design Patent Group and has been the attorney representing some of the world’s most iconic brands for year. With nearly thirty years of experience obtaining and enforcing intellectual property rights, Durkin is sought out by leading consumer product companies around the world for her deep understanding of utility and design patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Robert Earle is Vice President at Ericsson. Mr. Earle is responsible for Ericsson’s global patent assertion and enforcement program. He and his team are involved in developing Ericsson’s global patent assertion and enforcement strategy, providing detailed technical analysis of Ericsson’s industry-leading portfolio of more than 49,000 patents and mapping those patents against the products and services provided by potential licensees. Mr. Earle and his team have effectively used emerging market patent systems to ensure effective licensing opportunities in those markets, notable examples of which include India and Brazil. Mr. Earle has also engaged in global IP policy development. Prior to joining Ericsson in 2014, he was a partner with Fish & Richardson in its Dallas office. He has first-chair experience in multiple jury trials, representing clients before the federal and state trial courts.

Bart Eppenauer is a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, and managing partner of the firm’s Seattle office. His practice at Shook focuses on strategic IP counseling and analysis, prelitigation and litigation defense strategy and resolution, complex commercial and IP transactions and license agreements, and technology and IP policy advocacy. Prior to rejoining Shook, Bart was Chief Patent Counsel and Associate General Counsel at Microsoft for more than a decade. In that role, Bart led the development of Microsoft’s worldwide patent portfolio and managed a team of more than 100 IP professionals offering IP counseling and product development support across all of Microsoft’s business and research divisions. Under Bart’s guidance, Microsoft’s high-quality patent portfolio resulted in an extremely successful IP licensing program and received top rankings in IEEE Spectrum, BusinessWeek and The Patent Board.

Ron Epstein is CEO of Epicenter IP Group. With more than 20 years of experience in developing, optimizing, and transacting Intellectual Property (IP) asset portfolios, Ron is recognized as a global leader in helping patent owners maximize the value of their IP. As a market-maker, Ron has been instrumental in defining the category of patent brokers in the emerging patent marketplace, delivering over $1 billion of value from the sale or licensing of patents in over 150 transactions. As a thought leader, Ron has contributed to the public discourse, consulted with companies and law firms on complex IP transactions, and has helped to develop many who are now leaders in their own right in the IP monetization industry. Prior to founding Epicenter IP, Ron was the CEO of IPotential, which he founded in early 2003. Ron was vice president and general counsel at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. where he created and implemented Brocade’s IP strategy, developing a valuable patent portfolio and defending the company in three patent litigations filed during that period.

Mike Franzinger is a Partner with Sidley Austin LLP. Mike’s practice focuses on patent and trade secret litigation in the ITC and federal courts, as well as inter partes reviews and other contested proceedings before the PTAB. He has represented and advised clients in Section 337 investigations, arbitrations and mediations, district court lawsuits, patent reexaminations and reviews, license negotiations and merger due diligence. Mike also currently serves on the Federal Circuit Advisory Council.

Kate Gaudry, Ph.D., is a Partner with Kilpatrick Townsend. Kate focuses her practice on data-driven and strategic patent prosecution and has developed a reputation for being one of the premiere data driven prosecution experts in the country. Specifically, she routinely performs empirical analyses of general, portfolio-level or application-level prosecution techniques to inform her clients’ selection amongst various prosecution strategies. Through this research, she identifies probabilities and predictive factors of success for various approaches. She has authored over fifty publications. Dr. Gaudry also frequently consults with legal-services companies to help avail big-data, statistical and artificial-intelligence tools to prosecution professionals. Most of her clients are in the software, computers, and quantitative-biology technical areas. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law, a Ph.D. in Computational Neurobiology from UCSD, and a B.S. in Physics from Fort Hays State University.

Adam Gill is the Founder & Managing Director of GLS Capital. Mr. Gill has been a litigation funder since 2013 when he joined Gerchen Keller Capital as its first employee and led its IP underwriting and investments. Gerchen Keller Capital became the world’s largest investment firm focused on legal and regulatory risk before being acquired by Burford Capital in December 2016. Earlier in his career he spent decade litigating patents and complex commercial cases, most of which took place while at Kirkland & Ellis, where he was a partner in the IP group. Claims that Mr. Gill has led as a litigator or litigation funding underwriter have returned more than $700 million in settlements, verdicts and judgments.

Kirk Goodwin is Assistant General Counsel and Global Head of Patents for Whirlpool Corporation. Previously, Mr. Goodwin served as Chief Patent Counsel, North America, and Chief Counsel for Global Information Systems for Whirlpool. Mr. Goodwin leads Whirlpool’s team of patent attorneys, agents and paralegals in various patent functions, including IP clearance, acquisition, technology transactions and litigation. Prior to joining Whirlpool, Mr. Goodwin was a senior patent attorney for Maytag Corporation, where he led offensive and defensive patent and trade secret litigation.

Michael Gulliford is the Founder of Soryn IP Group, as well as its sister company Soryn Capital, which offers a number of financial solutions designed to protect and unlock the value of intellectual property. At Soryn, Michael is a trusted advisor and investor to a number of the world’s most prestigious universities, law firms and companies, and has closed close to $200 million in patent-centric deals. He is the name behind a number of the most talked about patent deals, and he has repeatedly been named to the List of Leading IP Strategists in the World.  Prior to founding Soryn, Michael was a partner in the patent litigation group at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.  He holds a BA in Neuroscience from Columbia University and a JD from the Seton Hall University School of Law.

Phil Hartstein is president and CEO of Finjan Holdings, Inc. He oversees the direction and management of current assets and future investments and works with the company’s executive management team to execute the shareholders’ vision of a public technology company. Mr. Hartstein has worked in a number of technology and IP-related roles for over a decade. He started with a boutique IP law firm, before working in an in-house IP function for a venture capital-funded start-up and spending time in IP consulting and IP brokerage firms. Before joining Finjan, he spent four years with two groups focused on introducing both private and public market capital, expertise and credibility into licensing and enforcing patent rights on behalf of owners.

David Henry is the Leader of Gray Reed’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group and is based in the firm’s new office in Waco, Texas. His practice is focused on handling a wide variety of patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright matters, ranging from enforcement and defense of rights in litigation to strategic planning, prosecution, registration and licensing. David is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Canadian Patent Office. When not practicing law, David serves on a judicial advisory panel for formulating patent case rules and procedures and has served as a patent law professor at Baylor Law School since 1994.

Brian Hinman is Chief Commercial Officer at Aon Intellectual Property Solutions. Mr. Hinman is part of the senior leadership team of Aon Intellectual Property Solutions, where he helps lead efforts for Aon in seizing the generational opportunity to establish market-accepted standards for assessing and valuing the IP asset class for businesses and investors. Mr. Hinman has more than 30 years’ experience in the IP field, and has been recognized by IAMas one of the top IP strategists in the world. Prior to joining Aon, he served as chief IP officer at Philips, based in the Netherlands. He also held the position of CEO of Philips Intellectual Property and Standards, where he led a worldwide team of more than 400 IP professionals in nine different countries. He formulated and executed a robust IP strategy for each of Philips’ business units – including IP portfolio management, all IP litigation matters (offensive and defensive), active participation in various industry standards and conducting all forms of IP monetization, including patent, technology and brand licensing and the formation of various IP ventures. Prior to Philips, Mr. Hinman was co-founder and chief operating officer of Unified Patents Inc, vice president of intellectual property and licensing at IBM, Verizon and InterDigital and was founding CEO of Allied Security Trust.

John Jackson is a Partner with Jackson Walker LLP. For more than 20 years, John has represented a wide variety of clients in patent litigation and complex commercial litigation matters in federal and state courts throughout the country, and in the International Trade Commission. He has served as trial counsel in more than 125 patent infringement lawsuits nationally, including numerous cases in Delaware and the Marshall, Tyler and Texarkana Divisions of the Eastern District of Texas. John has tried major patent infringement cases to a jury and has considerable experience with all aspects of the claim construction or Markman process in patent infringement lawsuits.  John also Co-Chairs Jackson Walker’s Cybersecurity Litigation Group and counsels clients concerning various data privacy issues. Prior to entering private practice, John clerked for the Honorable Jane J. Boyle, who was then U.S. Magistrate Judge (and currently a District Judge) for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

David Hall is a Founding Partner with Sage Patent Group. He has been practicing law since 1993. His practice is focused on patent preparation and prosecution in electrical and computer technology, semiconductor devices and materials, software, microelectronic fabrication, communication and networking.  He previously served as Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property of Cree, Inc., where he was responsible for managing patent prosecution, patent litigation, and licensing, and as Patent Counsel with Ericsson, Inc., where he was responsible for managing patent prosecution. Before practicing law, David was a systems programmer at IBM.

Sharon Israel is a Partner with Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP. She is an accomplished litigation attorney who focuses her practice on intellectual property law, with an emphasis in patent litigation. She has represented IP clients before trial and appellate courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the International Trade Commission. She also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation; the Texas Bar Foundation; the Houston Bar Foundation; and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Sharon has litigated patents related to a variety of industries and technologies, including wireless communications, oilfield equipment, consumer electronics, chemicals and medical devices.  She is a frequent speaker and writer on IP-related topics, and has served in leadership roles in numerous organizations, including the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the State Bar of Texas Intellectual Property Law Section, the Houston Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Federal Circuit Bar Association. She is a past President of the AIPLA, and currently serves on the Council for the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Section. Before joining Shook, Sharon was a partner with the Houston office of Mayer Brown LLP. An MIT graduate, she was an engineer for General Electric before entering law school.

Efrat Kasznik is President of Foresight Valuation Group and a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Efrat is a Silicon-Valley based valuation and intellectual property expert with two decades of consulting experience, focusing on assisting IP holders across industries with the creation, commercialization and monetization of their intangible assets. She helps clients, ranging in size from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, with IP and business valuations in support of licensing deals, IP and technology acquisitions, M&A transactions, financial reporting, strategic planning and fundraising. She frequently serves as a testifying expert in disputes involving IP and startup valuations and damages. Efrat currently serves as Chair of the High-Tech Sector – LES USA-Canada and has been recognized as one of the top IP strategists in the world by IAM every year since 2013.

Patrick Kilbride is the Senior Vice President of the Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Kilbride oversees the center’s multilateral and international programs promoting the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights, managing a team of country and regional experts. Previously, Mr. Kilbride was Executive Director, Americas Strategic Policy Initiatives, and Executive Vice President, Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America (AACCLA), within the Chamber’s International Division. Prior to jining the U.S. Chamber, Mr. Kilbride was appointed to serve in the Bush administration as deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for Intergovernmental Affairs & Public Liaison. At USTR, Mr. Kilbride worked with state and local officials, business organizations, and non-governmental organizations to advance the President’s trade policy agenda; he served as USTR liaison to the network of industry trade advisory committees (ITACs), as well as the President’s Export Council; and, he was part of a White House-led, inter-agency team that coordinated efforts to secure congressional approval of pending U.S. free trade agreements.

Gregory Kisor is Global Head of Investment Fund Management at Intellectual Ventures Management LLC. Over more than 15 years at Intellectual Ventures, Mr. Kisor has held the roles of chief technologist, vice president of technology, vice president of licensing, vice president of investor relations and chief portfolio architect. He has been responsible for developing or co-developing many of the firm’s processes and methods related to patent analysis, patent valuation, portfolio management, portfolio strategy and investment planning. Mr. Kisor has also been a key contributor on many licensing deals and the raising and launching of several new funds. Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Mr. Kisor spent 10 years at Intel Corporation, where he held numerous jobs, including principal engineer and head patent technologist and strategist. As head patent technologist and strategist he was responsible for IP strategy, portfolio development and patent assertions, and was a key participant in license negotiations.

Kurt Kjelland is a Vice President, Legal Counsel at Qualcomm Incorporated.  Kurt represents the company in antitrust, competition law, and patent licensing matters, including investigations and litigation.  He has spoken extensively on SEPs, patent damages, and the interface between patent and antitrust law.  Kurt is a registered patent attorney and admitted to the California Bar.  Prior to joining Qualcomm, Kurt was a partner in a prominent law firm in San Diego, where he represented clients in high stakes patent litigation involving wireless communications, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles and his J.D. cum laude from the University of Notre Dame.

Sherry Knowles is Managing Partner with Knowles IP Strategy. From 2006-2010, Ms. Knowles was the Senior Vice President and Chief Patent Counsel at GlaxoSmithKline, where she served as the worldwide head of patents for all litigation and transactional matters and managed a global department of over 200 people in 12 offices. At GSK, Ms. Knowles was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, the Technology Investment Board, the Product Management Board, the Legal Management Team and she led the Global Patents Executive Team. In 2008, Managing IP Magazine named Ms. Knowles one of the top 10 most influential people in Intellectual Property. In November 2011, Intellectual Asset Management Magazine listed her among the top fifty key individuals, companies and institutions that have shaped the IP marketplace in the last eight years. She has also been recognized by IAM Magazine as one of the top IP strategists in the world numerous times.

Evan Langdon is a Partner with Nixon Peabody LLP. Evan is the leader of the International Trade Commission (ITC) Section 337 team at the firm. He focuses on Section 337 investigations before the ITC, intellectual property litigation in U.S. District Courts, and appeals before the Federal Circuit. Evan counsels clients on the nuances of navigating fast-paced Section 337 litigation involving patents, trademarks, and trade dress, and other unfair acts. Evan has litigated disputes across a wide variety of industries including LED lighting devices, mobile electronic devices and chipsets, data processing systems, semiconductors, lighting control devices, consumer electronics and accessories, shoes, household appliances, automotive, and various mechanical devices. He has represented clients in more than thirty Section 337 investigations in all phases of litigation.

Matt Larson is Vice President at Oceanic Partners, Inc., a Venture Capital firm that provides liquidity and co-investment opportunities to clients and private companies. Mr. Larson joins Oceanic from Bloomberg’s capital markets research division, Bloomberg Intelligence, where he focused on actionable intellectual property and litigation trends impacting the financial markets. Prior to Bloomberg, Mr. Larson worked as a patent litigator in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., representing clients in private negotiations, U.S. District Court, the U.S. Patent Office, and U.S. International Trade Commission.

Christopher Lee is a Founding Partner with Lee Sheikh Megley & Haan. Chris has dedicated his 25-year legal career to helping his clients navigate legal and business issues arising from intellectual property. Chris has represented his clients as their lead trial and appellate counsel in the enforcement of their intellectual property rights and in the defense of their business against allegations of infringement. His broad client base has included Fortune 500 multi-national corporations, emerging technology companies, individual innovators and their companies and private equity firms. Chris has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) as one of the world’s foremost IP strategists in the 2018 list of IAM Strategy 300 – The World’s Leading IP Strategists.

Josh Malone quit his corporate job in 2006 to take his shot at the Inventor’s Dream. Eight years later, savings depleted and kids college unfunded, he took one last swing before trudging back to the corporate world. And hit a homerun with Bunch O Balloons. His solution to the 63 year old problem of filling and sealing water balloons instantly became the number one selling summer toy. His invention was stolen by a notorious infringer who convinced the USPTO to revoke his patent under a controversial procedure of the 2011 America Invents Act. A brutal and costly legal battle combined with a anti-corruption crusade ultimately resulted in a $31 million award and restoration of his patent rights. He is now a full time volunteer with the inventor advocacy organization, US Inventor.

Dan McCurdy is CEO of RPX Corporation, where he previously served as senior vice president from 2014 to 2016. Prior to RPX, Dan was a partner with Quatela Lynch McCurdy. From 2008 through June 2014, he was CEO of Allied Security Trust, and Chairman and CEO of PatentFreedom.  In June 2014, PatentFreedom was acquired by RPX. Previously, Dan was founding CEO of ThinkFire; President of Intellectual Property of Lucent Technologies and Bell Laboratories; a Vice President of IBM responsible for the creation of its Life Sciences business unit; a Vice President of Ciena Corporation where he directed merger, acquisition and corporate development; Director of Business Development for IBM Research; and Manager of Technology and Intellectual Property Policy for IBM worldwide. He has been named in the IAM Strategy 300, honoring the leading 300 IP strategists worldwide, every year since the annual list has been published.

Eileen McDermott is the Editor-in-Chief of IPWatchdog.com. Eileen is a veteran IP and legal journalist, and no stranger to the intellectual property world, having held editorial and managerial positions at several publications and industry organizations. She has acted as editorial consultant for the International Trademark Association (INTA), chiefly overseeing the editorial process for the Association’s twice-monthly newsletter, the INTA Bulletin. Eileen has also served as a freelance editor for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); as senior consulting editor for the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) from 2015 to 2017; as Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief at INTA from 2013 to 2016; and was Americas Editor for Managing Intellectual Property magazine from 2007 to 2013.

Jamie McDole is an experienced First-Chair Trial Lawyer in Haynes and Boone’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group. He has represented numerous Fortune 50 companies in scores of litigations throughout the country in both federal court and the International Trade Commission. He also often counsels clients on global strategies for enforcement of patent portfolios. His accomplishments are a direct result of his focus on client objectives, creative “out of the box” strategies, and attention to detail. Jamie has led and participated in some of the largest patent infringement litigation in the United States. From the smartphone wars, check-imaging, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, or smart electricity meters, he has counseled his clients on pivotal issues in litigation and their businesses. Jamie has also represented and counseled his clients on appeal at the Federal Circuit and in proceedings at the United States Patent & Trademark Office, including in new Inter Partes Review proceedings.

Scott McKeown is a Partner in Ropes & Gray’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice and chair of the firm’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) group. He focuses his practice on post-grant patent counseling and litigation matters at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and related appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Named one of the world’s leading patent practitioners for post-grant proceedings by Intellectual Asset Management, Scott is the most active PTAB trial attorney in the U.S., having handled more than 150 PTAB matters since 2012, including those in which more than $500 million was at stake. He currently serves as lead post-grant counsel to some of the world’s best-known innovators. McKeown is also a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School and editor of PatentsPostGrant.com where he regularly contributing insights and commentary on USPTO post-grant patent proceedings, trends, practice tips and news. McKeown is a past Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA), Intellectual Property Law Section Committee 104 (Post Grant USPTO Proceedings).

Anthony Meola is a Partner with Schmeiser, Olsen & Watts, LLP, where he is a patent litigator and Co-Chair of the firm’s litigation group. Mr. Meola has significant experience litigating intellectual property disputes in state and federal courts, and particularly litigating patent matters. He also has significant experience representing clients at the International Trade Commission (ITC). Prior to joining Schmeiser, he founded The Meola Firm, PLLC, where he practiced all facets of intellectual property law including managing intellectual property portfolios, and he was special counsel for Kelley Drye & Warren, LLP, litigating patent and trademark infringement cases; preparing legal opinions; conducting IP due diligence; drafting technology transfer agreements and open source agreements; and prosecuting patent applications in various fields including mechanical, electro-mechanical, software and methods of conducting business. Prior to that he was a senior associate at Howrey, LLP, managing the intellectual property portfolio for Dictaphone Corporation and other large technology companies, as well as litigating intellectual property disputes.

The Honorable Paul Redmond Michel was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in March of 1988 by President Ronald Reagan. On May 31, 2010, Chief Judge Michel stepped down from the bench after serving more than 22 years on the court. In his years on the bench, Judge Michel judged thousands of appeals and wrote over 800 opinions, approximately one-third of which were in patent cases. Judge Michel continues to be a forceful advocate for a strong patent system and testifies regularly on Capitol Hill.

Raymond Millien is Vice President & Global Chief IP Counsel for Volvo Cars. Millien has been named one of the World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine numerous times over the last decade. In addition to his career as a legal executive, Millien is a lecturer and published author with experience in licensing, software, corporate, contract, and technology law. Prior to taking on his current role with Volvo, he was Associate General Counsel for IP & Engineering for GE Oil & Gas, General Counsel of Ocean Tomo, LLC, and Vice President and IP Counsel at The American Express Company. Millien has also practiced law in the Washington, DC offices of PCT Law Group, PLLC, DLA Piper US LLP and Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC.

William Munck is the Managing Partner of Munck Wilson Mandala, a firm CEO magazine refers to as a “Dallas intellectual property law powerhouse.” He is a member of the executive committee and chairs the firm’s technology/intellectual property law group. Mr. Munck has more than 25 years of experience counseling clients regarding development of market-focused offensive and defensive intellectual property portfolios. His technical expertise is in the hardware, software, firmware, gaming, wired/wireless communication, energy, defense and medical device/healthcare fields. Mr. Munck has been selected by his peers annually as a Texas Super Lawyer and a Best Lawyer in America in intellectual property.  Recently, Mr. Munck was added to the list of Distinguished Alumni by his law school, the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. Mr. Munck is also actively involved in local and national bar associations and he is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation and Life Fellow of the Dallas Bar Foundation.

Kristin Murphy is a Partner with Honigman LLP. Kristin is an intellectual property attorney with wide-ranging experience in domestic and foreign patent prosecution, including strategic patent portfolio development and management. Her practice also focuses on patent opinions, intellectual property valuations/due diligence, analyzing potential infringement/validity issues, and drafting and negotiating agreements relating to technology and intellectual property. Kristin has extensive experience with trademark, unfair competition, and patent litigation through trial and appeal. She also has experience in administrative contested matters, such as oppositions and cancellation practice before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and Inter Partes Review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Kevin E. Noonan, Ph.D., is a Partner with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP and serves as Chair of the firm’s Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals Practice Group. An experienced biotechnology patent lawyer, Dr. Noonan brings more than 20 years of extensive work as a molecular biologist studying high-technology problems in serving the unique needs of his clients. His practice involves all aspects of patent prosecution, practice before the PTAB, and litigation. He represents pharmaceutical companies both large and small on a myriad of issues, as well as several universities in both patenting and licensing to outside investors. He has also filed amicus briefs in landmark patent and other cases to district courts, the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court involving patenting issues relevant to biotechnology. Dr. Noonan is a frequent speaker, commentator and author on a variety of intellectual property law topics. He is a founding author of the PatentDocs blog, a site focusing on biotechnology and pharmaceutical patent law.

Daniel Papst is the Managing Director and Co-Owner of Papst Licensing GmbH & Co., a licensing company that monetizes national and international patents. Papst manages and supervises patent portfolios to be monetized, drafts and monitors license agreements, and monitors the correct accounting and payment of license fees. f Daniel completed his studies of electrical engineering and information technology at the University of Karlsruhe (Technical University), Germany, as a certified electrical engineer in 2000 and has been a German patent attorney since 2005. In that year he joined Papst Licensing operatively and is member of AIPPI, VPP, VDP, LES and IEEE.

Arvin Patel is Executive Vice President & Chief IP Counsel for TiVo. Prior to joining the TiVo, Mr. Patel served as Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Technicolor S.A, a video technologies supplier, from August 2015 to June 2017. Mr. Patel previously served as Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Licensing at Rovi from April 2011 to July 2015. Mr. Patel holds a B.A. in legal studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from the California Western School of Law.

Matthew Powers is one the Founding Partners of the Tensegrity Law Group LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in patent litigation trials, and appellate and counseling matters. Many of the patent cases handled by Tensegrity are further complicated by trade secret, contract, or other issues. Prior to forming Tensegrity, Mr. Powers was a managing partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Mr. Powers is known for taking tough cases to trial and winning them. He tries patent cases, trade secret cases, fraud cases, fiduciary duty cases, antitrust cases and contract cases. He has tried patent cases in every major patent venue, including U.S. district courts all over the country and the ITC, as well as maintaining a successful appellate practice at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. His litigation experience spans a wide variety of technologies, including computer hardware and software; operating systems and databases; networking; semiconductor devices, processing, and packaging; mobile phones and other consumer electronics; mobile commerce; medical devices; Wi-Fi and location services.

Kirupa Pushparaj is the Director of Intellectual Property at Square, Inc, where he leads a team that is responsible for all aspects of Square’s intellectual property globally. He protects Square’s innovation and rights by managing its patent, copyright, and trademark portfolios and is responsible for all of Square’s IP litigation, covering patents, domains, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Additionally, Kirupa leads Square’s legal operations team that is responsible for championing innovation, efficiency, and adoption of emerging technologies across the legal team. Before Square, Kirupa was IP counsel for Lab126 – the digital technology arm of Amazon.com – and was at Perkins Coie LLP before that, where he practiced patent prosecution and IP litigation. He has been recognized as a Northern California Rising Star in 2011 and 2012 by Super Lawyers, as Corporate IP Counsel of the Year by the San Francisco Business Times, as Corporate IP Star by Managing IP, as Best Under 40 Lawyers by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and has been included in the IAM 300 list of World’s Leading IP Strategists.

Gene Quinn is a Patent Attorney and a leading commentator on patent law and innovation policy. He is the Founder and Publisher of IPWatchdog.com, and serves as the President & CEO of IPWatchdog, Inc. Gene currently maintains a small private practice with Berenato & White, LLC, where he advises inventors, entrepreneurs and start-up businesses throughout the U.S. and around the world. IPWatchdog.com has been recognized multiple times by the American Bar Association as a top 100 legal blog, multiple times as the top IP blog, and in 2014 was inducted into the ABA Blawg Hall of Fame. Gene has been recognized by IAM Magazine as one of the top IP strategists in the world every year since 2017. He has also been recognized by Managing Intellectual Property as one of the 50 Most Influential People in IP (2014). Regarded as an expert on software patentability and U.S. patent procedure, Gene’s particular specialty is in the area of strategic patent consultancy, portfolio building, and patent prosecution strategies.

Renée C Quinn is the Chief Operating Officer of IPWatchdog, Inc. She has worked with IPWatchdog since April 2006, where she is in charge of all of the day to day, behind-the-scenes operations of IPWatchdog. She handles all public relations, marketing and advertising inquiries for IPWatchdog. In addition, Renée is the producer for the IPWatchdog Weekly Webinar series and the IPWatchdog Institute Suite of courses. Renée holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and a Masters of Business Administration.

The Honorable Randall Rader, Chief Judge (ret.) of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Chief Judge Rader served as a Judge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for 24 years and has over 40 years of combined experience in the federal judiciary and legislature. He has authored hundreds of appellate opinions on intellectual property issues, has presided over numerous IP trials, and has led and/or participated in over sixty US delegations to foreign countries to discuss IP issues with international leaders and judges. Since retiring he has founded The Rader Group, where he provides IP dispute resolution services and counsels/educates on IP issues.

W. Edward Ramage is a Shareholder & Chair of the Intellectual Property Group at Baker Donelson. Mr. Ramage’s patent prosecution experience includes preparing and prosecuting applications for medical devices, health care IT systems, oil and gas technology, computer-implemented business methods, computer software and hardware systems and networks, fabrics, film labels and adhesives, enhanced petroleum recovery, and electronic and mechanical devices. His litigation experience includes copyright, patent, trademark and trade dress litigation in federal and state courts, including Inter Partes Review (IPR) and Covered Business Method (CBM) actions, as well as Post Grant Review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB). Mr. Ramage is a graduate of Harvard University cum laude with a degree in Geological Sciences, and received his Engineer Master’s degree from Stanford University, where he studied at the Stanford University Petroleum Research Institute. He received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.

Teresa “Terry” Stanek Rea is a Partner and Vice-Chair of Crowell & Moring’s Intellectual Property Group and a director with C&M International (CMI), the international trade and investment consulting firm affiliated with the firm. Terry is the former acting and deputy director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), as well as Acting and Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. Her practice concentrates on working with clients in several key areas, including IP policies and strategies, patent enforcement and post-grant administrative proceedings, trade secrets policy and enforcement, and digital/Internet related copyright issues. Managing Intellectual Property recognized Terry as one of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property. Additionally, Terry has been named among the National Law Journal’s 2014 “Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers,” Law360’s “2014 Most Influential Women in IP,” the Washington Business Journal’s “Legal Champions,” and Intellectual Asset Management’s “World’s Leading IP Strategists 2016.” She was also named one of the Top 25 Icons of IP by Law360 in 2016. She received the Patent and Trademark Office Society’s 2017 Pasquale J. Federico Memorial Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the patent and trademark systems of the United States.

Kent Richardson is a Partner with the Richardson Oliver Law Group. Kent counsels clients on a variety of patent and business matters including patent buying, selling, licensing, valuation, prosecution and operations. Kent has licensing and marketing patent portfolio experiences resulting in more than $600M of patent license bookings. Kent has served as an expert witness on patent monetization and licensing practices in cases in England and the United States, and he is also currently a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to founding the ROL Group, Kent was the General Manager of ThinkFire Services USA, Ltd’s Silicon Valley office. Kent has worked in various senior management roles with such growth businesses as Sezmi, Constellation Capital, Rambus, Numerical Technologies. Kent is a member of the California Bar, a registered patent attorney and holds five US patents.

Mark Roche is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Techquity Capital Management. Mr. Roche has significant experience growing companies profitably through the strategic development and execution of technology-based transactions, and he has been honored as one of IAM Magazine’s IAM 300, The World’s Leading IP Strategists. Prior to Techquity, Mr. Roche co-founded AT&T (formerly SBC) Knowledge Ventures, creating a recognized leader in intellectual property commercialization.  After establishing its operations, he led the successful monetization of the corporation’s global patent and trademark portfolio. In his additional role as Chairman of AT&T’s Patent Committee, Mr. Roche helped shape the corporation’s IP portfolio. Previously, Mr. Roche was instrumental in the launch of the newly constituted Prodigy Communications as head of finance, ultimately selling the business to SBC Communications.  In addition, he led global strategy and mergers & acquisitions for Emerson’s process automation solutions business.  He also held key roles at Emerson in corporate strategy as well as global sales & marketing.  Mr. Roche began his career in manufacturing engineering and technology development at General Motors.

Neal Rubin is Vice President of Corporate Strategy for RowanTELS. Prior to joining RowanTELS, Mr. Rubin served as Senior Vice President of RPX Corporation, where he was responsible for business development initiatives, patent transactions and client relationships.  Prior to RPX, Mr. Rubin served as Vice President of Litigation for Cisco Systems for nearly a decade, where he was responsible for managing outside counsel and the resolution of global commercial litigation, business disputes and government investigations.

Robert Ryan is a Partner with Holland & Hart, where he founded the firm’s Reno/Tahoe Office. Mr. Ryan serves clients in all phases of domestic and international intellectual property procurement, enforcement, and transactions, related and other antitrust matters, technical contract development, negotiation, and management, inter-corporate products liability matters, and expert testimony. Prior to joining Holland & Hart, Mr. Ryan was an equity partner at Allegretti, Newitt, Witcoff & McAndrews, Chicago, Ill, which evolved to become Banner & Witcoff. He was also a founding partner/director of McAndrews, Held & Malloy, and a founder of StarGuide Digital Networks, serving the company as its General Counsel and patent attorney, where he developed StarGuide’s’ extensive patent portfollio, and helped engineer StarGuide’s liquidity-event acquisition of DG Systems (NASDAQ:DGIT) in 2002.

Hans Sauer, Ph.D., is Deputy General Counsel and Vice President for Intellectual Property for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), a major trade association representing more than 1,000 biotechnology companies from the medical, agricultural, environmental, and industrial sectors. At BIO, he advises the organization’s board of directors, amicus committee, and various staff committees on patent and other intellectual-property-related matters. Before taking his current position at BIO in 2006, he was chief patent counsel for MGI Pharma Inc. in Bloomington, MN, and senior patent counsel for Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Baltimore, MD. Mr. Sauer holds a M.S. degree in biology from the University of Ulm in his native Germany, a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Lund, Sweden, and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center, where he also serves as Adjunct Professor.

Margaux Savee is a Principal and Patent Attorney at Polsinelli, representing Fortune 100 companies in complex patent disputes.  Committed to finding alternatives to patent litigation, Margaux has developed a nationally recognized niche in patent post-grant review and has worked on over 100 reexaminations and Inter Partes Reviews. Margaux has experience in post-grant review proceedings involving a variety of technologies, including computer software and hardware, multimedia and mobile devices, medical devices, energy technology, and biotechnology. Margaux has also litigated matters before the International Trade Commission and various U.S. District Courts, and also has appellate experience before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

J. Gregory Sidak is the Chairman of Criterion Economics, which he founded in 1999. He has testified as an expert economic witness in complex business disputes throughout the world, and he twice served as Judge Richard Posner’s court-appointed neutral economic expert. Sidak co-founded the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, published quarterly by the Oxford University Press since 2005, and is also the publisher and editor of the Criterion Journal on Innovation, which he founded in 2016. He has held the Ronald Coase Professorship of Law and Economics at Tilburg University in The Netherlands and the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Chair in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He has been a senior lecturer at the Yale School of Management and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Sidak was Judge Posner’s first law clerk, served on the senior staff of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President, and was deputy general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission. He has published six books and approximately 150 scholarly articles, primarily on antitrust, telecommunications regulation, and intellectual property.

Russell Slifer is a Principal at Schwegman Lundberg & Woesner. Slifer is also the former Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Slifer served as Deputy USPTO Director from March 2015 through January 20, 2017. While Deputy Director, Slifer managed all of the day-to-day operations of the USPTO. Prior to becoming Deputy Director of the USPTO, Mr. Slifer served as the Director of the Rocky Mountain United States Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to his work at the USPTO, Slifer held leadership positions in the intellectual property industry, spending eight years as Chief Patent Counsel for Micron Technology, and serving as a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and past President of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel (ACPC).

Erich Spangenberg is the Managing Director and Founder of IPwe, a company using blockchain and artificial intelligence to create the patent asset class. He also founded nXn Partners in 2008, a company that focused on predictive analytics. Spangenberg was the founder and CEO of IPNav, a company that was one of the pioneers in patent monetization. Erich founded IPNav in 2003 and remained CEO until 2013. Spangenberg is regularly recognized for his work in many industry publications. Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) named Erich as #2 of the top 40 IP “market makers” whose “connections, decisions and actions drive the ever-expanding global IP marketplace.” Managing Intellectual Property listed Erich as one of “The 50 People Shaping the Future of IP.” He has received numerous other industry and trade recognitions.

Robert Stoll is Co-Chair of Drinker Biddle’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. Bob retired from the USPTO as Commissioner for Patents at the end of 2011 after a distinguished 34-year government career. Bob was instrumental in the passage of landmark patent legislation, the America Invents Act, and lauded for his efforts to reduce patent pendency and improve patent quality. Having risen from the rank of examiner to lead the 8,000-employee organization, Bob has spent his career working to improve the intellectual property system. Today Bob advises clients on post-grant procedures before the USPTO and engages in policy work on patent issues. Bob regularly testifies as an expert on patent practice matters and represents other attorneys and firms before the Office of Enrollment and Discipline at the USPTO.

Lloyd Sadler is the Director of Licensing for Nokia Technologies. Mr. Sadler has more than 25 years of experience with intellectual property transactions, specifically in monetization (i.e., licensing, litigation and sales) of IP rights. Prior to joining Nokia Technologies in 2016, Mr. Sadler was Managing Director of IP Monetization for HP and a Licensing Director for Intellectual Ventures. Mr. Sadler also served as Corporate Counsel for LSI Corporation, and as Senior Licensing Manager in the Technology Transfer Office of the University of Utah. He is also a patent attorney, having graduated from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, and holds a Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering, and an MBA also from the University of Utah.

Hope Shimabuku is the Director of the USPTO Texas Regional Office. As the Director of the Texas Regional Office, Ms. Shimabuku carries out the strategic direction of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO and is responsible for leading the Texas regional office. Focusing on the region and actively engaging with the community, Ms. Shimabuku ensures the USPTO’s initiatives and programs are tailored to the region’s unique ecosystem of industries and stakeholders. Ms. Shimabuku brings to the USPTO nearly two decades of experience as an engineer and intellectual property attorney. Most recently, Ms. Shimabuku was part of the Office of General Counsel at Xerox Corporation serving as Vice President and Corporate Counsel responsible for all intellectual property matters for Xerox Business Services LLC. She also worked for BlackBerry Corporation advising on United States and Chinese standards setting, cyber security, technology transfer, and intellectual property laws and legislation.

Peter Sloane, the Chair of the Trademark and Copyright Practice Group at Leason Ellis, handles all aspects of trademark and copyright counseling, prosecution and litigation, including counseling clients on trademark adoption, filing trademark and copyright applications in the U.S., recording registrations with Customs and Border Protection, maintaining domestic trademark registrations, managing global trademark portfolios, handling oppositions and cancellations in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and litigating intellectual property disputes in the federal courts.

Sarah Spires is a Litigation Partner with Skiermont Derby LLP where focuses her practice on patent infringement litigation, inter partes reviews, adversarial licensing disputes, and intellectual property transactions, particularly in the life science and biotechnology areas, including Hatch-Waxman patent litigation and Hatch-Waxman antitrust litigation. She has successfully tried multiple cases to verdict in jury trials, bench trials and arbitration proceedings involving pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, computer software, semiconductors, LCD technology and telecommunications devices. Sarah also represents clients in various types of complex commercial litigation matters, including trademark infringement, contractual and patent licensing disputes, aviation litigation, and antitrust and false claims act cases. Sarah’s technical background includes conducting cell cycle research at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Prior to joining Skiermont Derby LLP, she was a senior associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Dallas, and previously worked as an associate in the San Diego and Tokyo offices of Morrison & Foerster LLP.

Monica Talley is a Director and Head of Sterne Kessler’s Trademark & Brand Protection Practice. For more than 20 years she has specialized in strategic trademark counseling and portfolio enhancement, developing anti-counterfeiting solutions and strategies, and resolving trademark disputes. Monica has particular expertise in enforcing brand rights against infringers and counterfeiters seeking to profit from her clients’ well-known brands. Ranked as one of the leading trademark prosecution and strategy attorneys in Washington, DC, Monica is also known or her global brand protection and commercialization strategies. Monica has been consecutively ranked in the prestigious World Trademark Review 1000 since 2012.  Monica has also been named an “IP Star” by Managing IP magazine since 2013 and is recognized as one of the magazine’s “Top 250 Women in IP.” Monica is also ranked among the “leading IP practitioners in the world” by the World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) in their 2017 and 2018 “WIPR Leaders” publication.

Bernard Tomsa is a Partner with Brooks Kushman. Bernie has drafted hundreds of patents, and he has extensive experience with software patent applications related to video game software, interactive automotive software systems, digital circuits, database systems, advertisement delivery software and systems, web-based applications, smart-phone applications, storage device hardware, and digital content delivery systems. Bernie works with several multi-national corporations on the management of large patent portfolios. Understanding the competitive advantage that can be obtained through application of modern computing technology to portfolio management, Bernie has developed expertise with software providing analytical portfolio analysis. Bernie holds a BSE in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, as well as a JD from the George Mason School of Law in Arlington, VA. Bernie is a registered patent attorney and a member of the State Bar of Virginia.

Jamie Underwood is a Partner and Global IP Strategist in Latham & Watkins’ Intellectual Property Litigation and International Trade Commission (ITC) Practices. Ms. Underwood represents complainants, respondents, and third parties before the ITC and in related matters before US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Her professional activities in the Section 337 arena have garnered rankings by Chambers, IAM Patent 1000, and Managing Intellectual Property. Ms. Underwood has lectured on ITC practice at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Baltimore School of Law, and Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. She also speaks and writes regularly on the topics of Section 337, intellectual property, litigation, and international trade. Her contributions are reflected in the book A Lawyer’s Guide to Section 337 Investigations Before the US International Trade Commission. For the last several years, she has also participated on the global trade stage as an NGO delegate to multiple World Trade Organization Ministerial Conferences. Ms. Underwood is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and serves on the firm’s Women Enriching Business Committee. She also currently serves as the President Elect for the Federal Circuit Bar Association.

Todd Van Thomme is a Shareholder with Nyemaster Goode P.C., in the firm’s Intellectual Property Department. His practice is diverse, but primarily focuses on assisting clients with their mechanical, chemical, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and food science related intellectual property needs. Todd also counsels clients on how to avoid intellectual property disputes and resolve them in a cost-effective manner. He has extensive experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications across a wide array of technologies, particularly food science, mechanical, and chemical related patent applications, as well as extensive experience drafting patentability, non-infringement, and invalidity opinions across a variety of technologies, in particular opinions related to mechanical, food science, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical patents and patent applications. Todd served as President for the Association of Intellectual Property Firms (AIPF) from 2010 to 2012.

Annsley Merelle Ward is an Attorney with Bristows LLP, and blogger with IPKat.com, where she has been widely known as the AmeriKat for more than a decade. Ward is a creative, energetic and hard fighting intellectual property litigator, experienced in complex multi-jurisdictional life sciences and TMT disputes. With a background in chemical engineering, her practice involves advising innovative companies in high-value patent, FRAND/SEP, SPC and trade secrets disputes before every level of English courts and CJEU. Ward is also a vocal advocate of diversity in IP, tech and policy, working to create meaningful change in the profession. She serves as Co-Chair of the London Chapter & Committee for Strategic Growth, of the ChIPs Network.

Kenneth Weatherwax is a Founding and Co-Managing Partner of Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP. A Princeton-trained engineer, Mr. Weatherwax is a nationally recognized patent litigator. Mr. Weatherwax’s practice focuses on patent litigations in all phases from pre-filing through appeal. His post-grant practice before the USPTO’s PTAB, in inter partes review (“IPR”), covered business method patent (“CBM”) review, and inter partes reexamination proceedings, is one of the most active in the country. He has been recognized by Docket Navigator as one of the “top attorneys in the PTAB,” and his firm Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP was recognized by Patexia in 2018 as the best-performing law firm in the history of inter partes review proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Weatherwax’s appellate practice includes has taken him to the United States Supreme Court, such as for the 2013 patent licensing matter Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, in which he helped lead the legal team that secured a grant of certiorari over the government’s opposition.

John White is a Patent Attorney and Lecturer. He is an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and is the principal lecturer in the PLI Patent Bar Review Course. John also teaches a patent practice course for new practitioners. Since John began teaching in 1995, he has personally taught at least 50% of all practicing patent attorneys and patent agents. John has also taught numerous U.S. Patent Examiners at the USPTO in the “Law and Evidence Course” necessary for them to advance to Partial Negotiation authority as Examiners. John serves as an expert witness in patent litigations and is regarded as a leading authority on patent practice and procedure in the United States. He maintains a selective patent practice with Berenato & White, LLC, largely aimed at assisting start-up technology companies increase and monetize their patent portfolios.

Donald L. Zuhn, Jr., Ph.D., is a Partner with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP and serves as Chair of the firm’s Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals Practice Group. Dr. Zuhn has more than a decade of experience in all aspects of patent prosecution, litigation, counseling, and licensing. He represents a variety of clients, including biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies both large and small, and universities. Dr. Zuhn joined MBHB in 1998. He maintained a full-time position as a law clerk while attending law school at night until his graduation in 2002. Dr. Zuhn holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Mammalian Genetics. He is a co-Founder of the PatentDocs blog.