IAM hosts Patent Law and Policy event in Washington, DC

Andrew Baluch is an adjunct professor of international patent law at George Washington University Law School. Previously, he was partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, where he was resident manager of the firm’s Shanghai office and co-chaired its post-grant practice group in Washington DC. Mr. Baluch is also a partner in the boutique IP law firm Strain & Strain PLLC, where he specialises in USPTO post-grant trial proceedings and US Supreme Court and Federal Circuit patent appeals.

Owen Byrd is Lex Machina’s chief evangelist and general counsel. He provides thought leadership in the domain of legal analytics and its application to the practice of law, via speaking engagements, publications, webcasts, blogging, social media and press. He also assists with sales, marketing and customer success, and manages Lex Machina’s operations, including legal, finance and human resources.

Nicolas Chaillan is a technology entrepreneur, software developer, inventor and investor. He is recognised as one of France’s youngest entrepreneurs, having founded company WORLDAKT at the age of 15. With 16 years’ experience as a CEO, he is currently CEO of Nesting Partners, Cyber Revolution, Inc. Previously, he was CEO of AFTER-MOUSE.COM, anyGuest.com and Wait List Ordering. He is also the chairman of Holding AKT, a self-defined “software incubation and propulsion lab” which has sold over 170 products.

Aaron Cooper served more than seven years on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he was chief counsel for IP and antitrust law. In this role he was responsible for all aspects of the committee’s IP and antitrust initiatives, including drafting, negotiating and developing the legislative strategy for passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. He left the committee at the end of 2013 and is now of counsel at Covington & Burling.

Robert Earle is vice president, patent assertion and enforcement at Ericsson. His group within Ericsson’s IP rights organisation is responsible for driving Ericsson’s global patent assertion and enforcement activities. Specifically, he is involved in identifying potential licensees and providing detailed technical analysis of Ericsson’s portfolio of over 37,000 patents – as well as in the mapping of those patents against the products and services being provided by such potential licensees. In addition, Mr Earle supports licensing negotiations and takes the lead in relevant technical discussions, and supports any necessary litigation to enforce Ericsson’s IP rights.

In her role as senior patent adviser, Margaret Focarino advises Oblon clients on patent prosecution, procurement and rule-based US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) practices. Her decades of agency insight and expertise serve as an invaluable resource to Oblon clients that have come to rely on the firm’s uniquely qualified experts.

Most recently, Ms Focarino served as the USPTO’s commissioner for patents, where she managed and led the patent organisation as the chief operating officer. Her responsibilities covered management and direction of all aspects of the organisation that affected the administration of patent operations, examination policy, resources and planning and budget administration. She helped to lead the USPTO through the implementation of the America Invents Act.

Michael D Friedman is managing director at Ocean Tomo, overseeing its investments practice which covers investment banking, asset management and investment research.

Ocean Tomo’s investment banking practice brings IP financing, monetisation and capital markets solutions to corporations and other IP owners. Its asset management practice, where Mr Friedman serves as chief investment officer, engages in public equity, special situations and private equity investing where IP insight drives alpha creation. Its investment research practice works with institutional investors, hedge funds and private equity funds, advising them on IP-themed investments.

Philip S Johnson is senior vice president, IP policy and strategy at Johnson & Johnson.  He is also president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and a board member of multiple other IP associations.

Mr. Johnson has frequently testified before Congress on patent reform issues. He was recognised in the Congressional Record as a member of the minority whip’s ‘kitchen cabinet’ for the America Invents Act. Thereafter, he served as the IPO’s representative on the committee of six experts (COSE) formed at Director Kappos’ request to propose to the US Patent and Trademark Office implementing regulations for the post-grant review and inter partes review proceedings that were created by the America Invents Act.

David W Jones is assistant general counsel for IP policy at Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Mr Jones worked as counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, serving in various positions, including chief antitrust counsel for the Judiciary Committee and counsel to the Intellectual Property Sub-committee. Mr Jones received his legal education at the University of Virginia School of Law and completed two appellate clerkships, one with Judge Will Garwood of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the other with Judge Sharon Prost of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Mr Jones began his career in the regulatory and appellate litigation practice group at Sidley & Austin in Washington DC, where he worked primarily on matters involving telecommunication and internet law.

Konstantinos Karachalios, managing director, IEEE Standards Association, is a recognised leader within the standards development and IP communities, with extensive expertise in public policy, strategic planning and the not-for-profit sector. His leadership played a crucial role in the successful cooperation between Germany and France on coordinated research and scenario simulation pertaining to large-scale nuclear accidents. Mr. Karachalios later joined the European Patent Office (EPO), where he created and led the International Academy, the Department of Technical Assistance to the Middle East and Africa and the Bureau for Public Policy Issues. He served as the EPO’s envoy to multiple UN organisations and was co-editor of the EPO’s book Scenarios for the Future: How might IP regimes evolve by 2025? What global legitimacy might such regimes have?

David Kennedy specialises in providing IP strategic consulting and transaction advisory services. His experience includes determining reasonable royalty rates, negotiating patent sales and licence agreements and performing patent portfolio valuations. He has managed IP holding companies, raised venture capital for IP-based companies and provided strategic advice to companies and universities on patent portfolio divestitures. He has also purchased patents, and has designed and implemented licensing programmes as a patent owner and on behalf of investor groups, inventors and corporations.

Gail Levine is vice president and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications Inc. She is responsible for shaping the company’s patent policy programme, leading its Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiatives and coordinating advocacy on the Internet of Things. Ms Levine formerly handled antitrust issues at Verizon.

Previously, Ms. Levine was an attorney adviser to the chair of the FTC, advising on antitrust and IP issues. Before joining the chair’s office, Ms Levine was the FTC’s deputy assistant general counsel.

Matthew Levy is patent counsel at the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), where he handles legal, policy advocacy and regulatory matters relating to patents, and where he is the lead blogger for CCIA’s Patent Progress. Before joining CCIA, he handled both patent litigation and patent prosecution in private practice. Mr Levy also worked as a software designer for several years at IBM and is co-inventor on a patent that is based on his work there.

Terry Ludlow is the founder, chair and CEO of Chipworks. He is a recognised leader and pioneer in the use of advanced semiconductor reverse engineering processes to support innovative product design and extract maximum value from intellectual property.

Mr Ludlow founded Chipworks in 1992 with the vision and goal of offering the most accurate and reliable patent and competitive intelligence across a broad range of products and manufacturers. Under his guidance and leadership, the company has grown from a handful of technology enthusiasts to one of the largest and most respected patent and technology analyst companies, with the most sophisticated in-house technical labs in the world.

Scott A McKeown leads the post-grant team at Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, LLP, which is responsible for electronics, wireless communications, software and computer-related inventions and business methods. Mr McKeown has been lead Patent Trial and Appeal Board counsel in some of the most high-value disputes before the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), including some in which more than $500 million was at stake. His practice group is one of the top filers of challenges under the America Invents Act in the United States.

Paul Michel was appointed to the Federal Circuit in 1988. Between 2004 and 2010 he held the position of chief judge. He judged several thousand appeals and authored more than 800 opinions, one-third of which concerned IP law.

Since retiring from the court, Judge Michel continues to share his knowledge by speaking out on issues relating to courts, the patent system and the protection of intellectual property. He also provides mediation, arbitration and case evaluation to private clients. He was appointed distinguished scholar in residence by the Intellectual Property Office.

Suzanne Michel is senior patent counsel at Google, where she focuses on patent policy. Previously, she was deputy director in the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where she worked on patent policy and IP and antitrust issues and headed the project on the ‘Evolving IP Marketplace’, including drafting the FTC report released in March 2011. The FTC awarded her the Paul Rand Dixon award and the Excellence in Supervision award. Previously, Ms. Michel worked at the US Department of Justice as a patent litigator.

Ilkka Rahnasto heads the patent business at Nokia Technologies, the advanced technology and licensing arm of Nokia. The patent business manages one of the industry’s broadest and strongest IP portfolios, with more than 100 licensees and annual revenues above €500 million. From 2001 to 2010, Mr Rahnasto led the creation of Nokia’s patent licensing business. He then served as deputy chief legal officer of Nokia and head of legal and intellectual property for Nokia’s devices and services business until its sale to Microsoft in 2014, when he returned to lead the next chapter in Nokia’s patent business.

Nicholas Rodelli was a litigator and corporate governance counsellor at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati – a Palo Alto, California-based technology sector-focused law firm – and Jenner & Block in Chicago, Illinois. Immediately prior to joining CFRA, Mr Rodelli was a merger arbitrage and special situations analyst at a multi-strategy hedge fund, where he performed merger antitrust, litigation, US Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement and regulatory risk assessments and fundamental analysis. Mr Rodelli has appeared on CNBC and has been quoted in Barron’s, Bloomberg, The New York Times and other major publications. He has a JD with honours from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was a member of the North Carolina Law Review, the North Carolina Banking Law Journal and the North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation.

Lisa Samuels is a patent prosecution practitioner at Pfizer Inc, where she co-leads Pfizer’s US post-grant proceedings team. Her work focuses on patent prosecution, post-grant proceedings (including reissue and inter partes review), patent term extensions and patent linkage.

Laurie Self is vice president and counsel of government affairs at Qualcomm Incorporated, where she specialises in IP and related policy matters. Based in Washington DC, Ms Self represents the company before Congress and a number of US government offices, and within various professional and advocacy groups. She also supports Qualcomm’s strategy and initiatives to promote strong IP rights in China and other emerging markets. Her particular focus is to ensure that US IP and trade policies provide the necessary protections and incentives to support the company’s R&D-driven business model. Prior to her arrival at Qualcomm in July 2012, Ms. Self was a partner at law firm Covington & Burling, where she chaired the firm’s IP rights practice group.

David Shofi is vice president, IP strategy solutions, at CPA Global. He assists clients in assessing and identifying opportunities for process improvement, cost management and efficiency implementation throughout their IP lifecycle. Before joining CPA Global, Mr Shofi was chief IP counsel for ATMI, where he developed and managed all aspects of IP generation, protection, management and enforcement. He has broad experience in patent, trademark, copyright and trade secrets and his expertise includes IP strategy and portfolio management, trade secret best practices, open source software, standards, IP licensing and M&A. Throughout his career, he has practised in the prosecution, transactional and litigation areas and has managed various teams of IP professionals. Prior to joining ATMI, Mr. Shofi was IP counsel for IBM Corporation and was an associate at Baker Botts.

Erich Spangenberg is CEO of nXn Partners, a company that generates actionable intelligence from structured and unstructured data. Previously, Mr Spangenberg was founding CEO of IP Navigation Group (IPNav), which provides strategic advisory services to IP owners. Earlier in his career, Mr. Spangenberg was president of Acclaim Venture Group, an equity and debt investment fund focused on technology and industrial investments. Prior to that he was a senior executive at a telecommunications company, senior vice president at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette and an associate and partner at the law firm Jones Day.

John P Veschi is CEO of Marquis Technologies, a full-service IP and technology consulting business comprising most of the former Rockstar and Nortel IP teams. During his tenure as chief IP officer and president of Nortel’s IP business, Mr Veschi built and led the team behind the historic Nortel patent auction. He continued to develop and lead this team as CEO of Rockstar. Before joining Nortel, Mr. Veschi was chief IP counsel and general manager of the IP business at LSI Corporation. He previously held a similar role at Agere Systems.

John Whealan joined the George Washington University Law School (GW) in 2008 as the associate dean for IP law. He coordinates GW’s extensive IP programme – including its IP LLM programme – and co-teaches two courses: Patent Law and the Federal Circuit.

Before joining GW, Dean Whealan worked at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), where he served as deputy general counsel for IP law and as a solicitor. He also served as counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, where he worked on legislation that eventually became the America Invents Act.  Prior to joining the USPTO, Dean Whealan was a staff attorney for the US International Trade Commission. He clerked at both the appellate and trial court levels.