Speakers

John A. Amster is the Co-CEO of RPX. Prior to co-founding RPX, Mr. Amster was the General Manager of Strategic Acquisitions and Vice President of Licensing at Intellectual Ventures, responsible for strategic acquisitions of patent portfolios as well as developing the software and e-commerce licensing programs. Prior to joining IV, Mr. Amster was Managing Director and founded the M&A Advisory practice for Ocean Tomo, completing transactions with an aggregate value of approximately $40 million, including the sale of Commerce One.  Prior to joining Ocean Tomo, Mr. Amster was Vice President and Secretary at InterTrust Technologies, where he worked on intellectual property transactions, merger and acquisition activities, and late-stage financing activities, including the sale of InterTrust to a Philips-Sony joint venture for $453 million. Mr. Amster started his career as an associate at Weil Gotshal & Manges, where his practice included mergers and acquisitions, equity investments, venture capital financings, intellectual property licensing, and patent litigation.

Robert Barr is Executive Director of BCLT and the former Vice President for Intellectual Property and Worldwide Patent Counsel for Cisco Systems in San Jose, California, where he was responsible for all patent prosecution, licensing and litigation. Robert has degrees in Electrical Engineering and Political Science from MIT and a JD from Boston University School of Law. He is a frequent speaker on patent reform and has testified twice at the Federal Trade Commission hearings on Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy. He was named by the Daily Journal as one of the top 25 Intellectual Property Lawyers in California in 2003, and as one of the top 10 in-house intellectual property lawyers in 2004.

Barry Brager is the Founder and Managing Partner of Perception Partners®. He is responsible for diverse teams, tools and techniques that help clients understand, quantify and maximize the value from innovation and intellectual property. In this role, Barry leads the deployment of technology investment, business development and intellectual property transaction Solution Suites that have supported decisions related to more than $1 billion in financial transactions. Barry is also the Chief Executive Officer of Starpound Corporation. Starpound is an IP management company that licenses technology to turn mobile phones into remote control devices. Barry holds one patent and multiple pending related to these endeavors.

Anthony Breitzman is responsible for ensuring that 1790 Analytics continues to offer its clients the latest techniques in intellectual property evaluation. Dr. Breitzman also serves as Principal and Director of Research of our sister company, 1790 Capital Management LLC, which manages hedge funds that invest in companies with high quality intellectual property. Dr. Breitzman is recognized worldwide as an expert in the evaluation of science and technology. He has consulted extensively with Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, helping them to manage and exploit their intellectual property more effectively. Dr. Breitzman has published numerous research papers in journals covering intellectual property management, technology assessment and research evaluation. He is invited to speak on intellectual property at conferences worldwide, and is also the inventor of a ground-breaking patent linking technology strength and stock market performance.

Henry Chesbrough coined the term Open Innovation and is the author of Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (HBS Press, 2003). He has also written two other books on open innovation: Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (HBS Press, 2006) and Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm (Oxford, 2006). Chesbrough is currently an Adjunct Professor and the Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to Haas, he taught at the Harvard Business School as an Assistant Professor and Class of 1961 Fellow from 1997 – 2003. Dr. Chesbrough’s work has spawned a number of ventures seeking to transform Open Innovation from a school of thought to a school of practice.

Ron Epstein (CEO, IPotential) has 20 years of experience in developing and optimizing IP asset portfolios. Prior to founding IPotential, Ron was vice president and general counsel at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. where he created and executed on Brocade’s intellectual property strategy, filing for more than 80 patents and over a 24-month period and defending the company in three patent litigations filed during that period. Before joining Brocade, Ron served as Director of Licensing at Intel Corporation, where he was responsible for the company’s IP licensing strategy, including defense against assertions, and the creation of Intel’s value licensing program. Ron built his legal career at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati as a member of the Technology Licensing Group, where he specialized in helping clients minimize liability under the patent portfolios of leading companies such as IBM, Lucent, and Intel; and negotiate patent cross-license agreements in conjunction with complex patent litigation settlements. Ron holds a Bachelor of Science from Duke University and a J.D. from the School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Ron is an active member of the Licensing Executives Society. 

Andy Gibbs is the founder and CEO of PatentCafe (www.patentcafe.com), and IPFrontline (www.ipfrontline.com), a leading international IP magazine for patent attorneys, corporate counsel, engineers and inventors. Mr. Gibbs served to two terms on the USPTO Public Patent Advisory Committee (PPAC) from 2000 2004. The 9-member PPAC advises the Patent Office on various budget, legislative and operations matters. He served as a member of the Board of Directors, Intellectual Property Owners Association (www.ipo.org), and is a member of the Licensing Executives Society (www.lesi.org). He also serves on the Board of Directors of By Kids For Kids, Co. the national kid invention education initiative (www.BKFK.com). As an international IP Thought Leader, he was a member of the esteemed panel of participants in Building a New IP Marketplace – the IBM / NY Law School WIKI project that discussed policy and process for improving patent quality, transparency, fair valuation, flexibility and global consistency. (Published 2006; English and Japanese)

Robert B. Goldman, Principal at CRA International, assists clients in developing and implementing strategies for managing and realizing value from their intellectual property portfolios.  He has consulted on numerous engagements involving the valuation of intellectual property and intangible assets for licensing and sale transactions, mergers and acquisitions, corporate spin-outs, corporate restructuring, and other purposes.  Mr. Goldman is experienced in performing IP analytics research to assist clients in making informed IP-related decisions in variety of contexts such as M&A due diligence, transaction target identification and prioritization, and risk assessment.  His litigation experience includes the determination of reasonable royalties and lost profits in patent infringement matters, valuation/damages in technology license disputes, and damages in trade secret misappropriation matters.  Mr. Goldman is active in the Licensing Executives Society (LES) as a frequent speaker and instructor on IP Valuation and IP Intelligence.

Stuart Graham, teaches and conducts research on intellectual property strategies, entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and the legal environment of business. He received his PhD in business economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds advanced degrees in Law (JD), Business (MBA), and Geographical Information Systems (MA). An attorney licensed to practice law in the State of New York, he has written on intellectual property and litigation strategies in the software and biotechnology industries, comparative studies of the U.S. and European patent systems, and the use by companies of patenting and secrecy in their innovation strategies. Professor Graham has conducted his research under grants provided by the National Academies of Science, the National Science Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the OECD, among others. He spent the 2007-2008 academic year at the Boalt Hall School of Law (UC Berkeley) as the Kauffman Foundation Fellow in Social Science and Law at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.

William Harmon, Senior Attorney, Patent Portfolio Analysis Team, Microsoft Corporation, works with technical, business and legal contacts to determine the value of Microsoft’s intellectual property assets and those of other parties, in the context of licensing and litigation. He is admitted to practice Washington, California, District of Columbia, and United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Suzanne Harrison is the Founder and CEO of Gathering2.0, the first online peer community for Intellectual Property professionals. Prior to her current position, she was a Director with LECG and a co-founder of ICMG, a consulting firm specializing in helping companies extract value from their innovations. Since 1988, she has been helping companies leverage their intangible assets into value.  Ms. Harrison is a convenor of the ICM Gathering and the IP Forum, a group of 25 companies who have been meeting since 1995 to define, create, and benchmark best practices around ICM and IPM.  Ms. Harrison is the recipient of the Licensing Executives Society North America Fellowship.  She holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California at Davis, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Ms Harrison has written numerous articles and is a frequent speaker about how companies can extract value from their innovations.  She is the co-author of Einstein in the Boardroom published by John Wiley & Sons in 2006 and Edison in the Boardroom also published by John Wiley & Sons in 2001.

Michael A. Jacobs has concentrated his practice on litigation of high-technology and intellectual property matters. Representing a broad array of clients, his work in several landmark cases has helped to shape the laws governing emerging technologies. He has litigated a wide range of patent, contract, and trade secret disputes in the information technology and life sciences field. He has also handled numerous high-profile arbitrations, several of which involved the interplay between arbitration and court proceedings. Prior to the start of his legal career, Mr. Jacobs held assignments with the United States Foreign Service in Kingston, Jamaica, and Washington, D.C. Mr. Jacobs joined Morrison & Foerster in 1983 and is a partner in its San Francisco office. He served as co-head of the firm’s intellectual property practice since its founding in 1990 until February 2003. He also served as the firm’s Managing Partner for Operations from 1995 to 1997.

Brian Kahin is Senior Fellow at the Computer & Communications Industry Association in Washington, DC, where his work focuses on patent policy, standards, open source, and innovation policy.  He is also Research Investigator and Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, and a Lecturer at the University of Colorado. Kahin was founding Director of the Information Infrastructure Project at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (1989-97).  He served as Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1997 to 2000, where he chaired the interagency working group on the digital economy. Kahin has edited ten books on Internet-related policy, including Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy (MIT Press 2006).

Dan Lang is the Director in Cisco’s Patents and Standards IPR department. Prior to joining Cisco, Lang was a Design Engineer with Loral Conic. He holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the Case Western Reserve University.

Mike Lasinski is a Managing Director at Ocean Tomo and is in charge of the company’s valuation practice area. Mike serves clients in the areas of strategy, valuation and tax structure analysis. In the valuation area, Mike has valued intellectual property and businesses in the context of licensing, sale, purchase (including purchase price allocation), corporate spin-outs, joint ventures, litigation (reasonable royalty and economic damage analyses) and tax-related transactions. Mike has completed more than 200 valuations during his professional career. He has spoken on the topics of IP valuation, IP licensing and IP tax strategies throughout the U.S. as well as internationally. In the strategy area, Mike has helped his clients establish intellectual property management subsidiaries, licensing departments and intellectual asset management groups throughout the world. He has also performed inventories of company IP (including patents, trademarks, software, trade secrets and other IP). In fulfilling such responsibilities, Mike has developed strategies for clients surrounding licensing, sale, donation and abandonment of IP. For strategies related to licensing or sale of intellectual property or businesses, Mike has been a key member of the negotiation team.

Ron Laurie has worked in Silicon Valley for over forty years, initially as a computer programmer and systems engineer, and then as an intellectual property lawyer. In 2004, he co-founded Inflexion Point Strategy, LLC, an intellectual property investment bank engaged in buying, selling and investing in strategic IP assets and IP-intensive businesses. Prior to launching Inflexion Point, Ron was a founding partner of Skadden Arps’ Palo Alto office where he chaired the firm’s IP Strategy and Transactions Group for six years. He was also a founding partner of Weil Gotshal’s Silicon Valley office in 1991. As a lawyer, Ron advised clients in the semiconductor, computer, software, communications, media and financial services industries on intellectual property strategy — a subject which he has taught at Stanford and Boalt (UC-Berkeley) law schools — with a primary focus on the strategic use of IP assets in complex business transactions including mergers and acquisitions, technology divestitures, joint ventures and strategic alliances. At Skadden, Ron led IP teams in some of the largest technology deals ever done, worth over $50 billion.

Douglas Luftman

Douglas Luftman serves as
Vice President, Innovation Services and Chief Intellectual
Property Counsel for NetApp, Inc., a Fortune 500, storage and data management solutions company, where he is
responsible for the company’s worldwide intellectual
property strategy.  NetApp’s innovation and intellectual
property program has been nationally recognized including
by Fortune as one of the
Fastest-Growing Companies in California and Nationwide; Forbes as one of the World’s Most
Innovative Companies; the Intellectual Property Owners
Association as one of the top 300 patent holders and IEEE Spectrum as having one of the highest
quality patent portfolios in the computer peripherals and
storage industry.  

Prior to joining NetApp, Mr.
Luftman’s roles have included Vice President & Chief
Patent Counsel for CBS; Chief Intellectual Property
Counsel, Palm, Inc.; Vice President, General Counsel and
Secretary of Caspian Networks; West Coast Counsel of CIENA
Corporation; and Senior Intellectual Property Group
Counsel for Intel’s Communications Group.  Prior to
working in-house, Mr. Luftman was an attorney at Fenwick
& West LLP, Silicon Valley Office.  He also externed
for The Honorable Randall R Rader of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Based on his
accomplishments, Mr. Luftman has had the honor of being
recognized by such organizations as the Silicon Valley/San
Jose Business Journal and the San Francisco Business Times
as a Best Bay Area Corporate Counsel – IP Lawyer,
Finalist, by the International Law Office as an ILO Global
Counsel Awards Finalist and by Law360 as one of the Most
Innovative Corporate Counsel.

Mr. Luftman earned his J.D.
with honors from The George Washington University School
of Law in Washington, DC and his B.S. in Electrical
Engineering from UCLA in Los Angeles, CA.  

Fabio Marino, a partner in the Silicon Valley office, is a member of the Intellectual Property Group and chair of the Networking Practice Group. Mr. Marino’s practice focuses on intellectual property law with an emphasis on patent litigation. Chambers’ USA Guide describes him as “one of the go-to names in the business.” He is admired for “his courtroom presence and impressive skills as a patent litigator.”

He has technical expertise in computer networks, software engineering, e-commerce, entertainment and Internet-related technologies, computer architecture, digital circuit design, parallel computing, 3-D graphics and animation, medical imaging and artificial intelligence.

Daniel P. McCurdy has more than twenty years of experience in intellectual property positions at highly regarded technological companies including ThinkFire, Lucent Technologies and the IBM Corporation. Mr. Curdy recieved his B.A. summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina and serves as Chairman of PatentFreedom, an online community providing companies comprehensive information and networking capabilities to better manage Non-Practicing Entities interaction.

Robert Merges has authored or coauthored three books, Patent Law and Policy: Cases and Materials, Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age, and Legal Protection for Computer Technology. Recent articles include “As Many as Six Impossible Patents before Breakfast: Property Rights for Business Concepts and Patent System Reform,” in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal (1999); “The Control of Strategic Alliances: An Empirical Analysis of Biotechnology Collaborations,” in the Journal of Industrial Economics (1998); and “Intellectual Property and Digital Content: Notes on a Scorecard,” in Rivista di Diritto Industriale (1998).

In addition to teaching and research projects, Merges also serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, and is a member of the Department’s Task Force on Intellectual Property.

Don Merino is General Manager, Acquisitions, at Intellectual Ventures, where he focuses on building IV’s patent portfolio as well as a variety of other projects relating to intellectual property and invention. Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Dr. Merino spent four years at Intel Corporation where he was Director, Strategic Business Development. In this position, Dr. Merino was responsible for managing the Intel licensing program. Dr. Merino was also the Director of Licensing for General Instrument, one of the founding members of MPEG-LA.  Prior to General Instrument, Don was Vice President of Operations for Engineering Information with an Internet start-up that was sold to Elsevier Science. Dr. Merino received his BS from the US Naval Academy in 1984 and his MEME and PhD from Stevens Institute of Technology.   Don Merino is a Navy veteran and served on the USS New Jersey, USS Arkansas and NAVSPECWARGRU 1.  For his service, he was awarded both the Navy Achievement and Navy Commendation medals.

Vince O’Brien is a founder and Managing Partner of OSKR, LLC which provides economic analysis and expert testimony for clients involved in complex litigation.  He has been providing these services in the intellectual property area for over 29 years and has testified sixty-six times in over fifty courts in the U.S. and abroad.  He is the author of several articles on the economics of patents.  He holds a BSEE from the University of Illinois and an MBA and DBA from Harvard University.  He is a member of the IEEE, the AEA, the NABE and the FMA.

Joseph Siino serves as Fmr. Vice President, Intellectual Property for Yahoo! Inc., one of the world’s leading Internet/media companies. Mr. Siino is responsible for intellectual property asset management for Yahoo! globally. He is widely regarded as an expert in structuring complex IP business deals, including IP acquisitions, divestitures, licenses and strategic partnerships. In addition to his business and legal career, Mr. Siino also spent a decade teaching at the University of California, Berkeley’s renowned Center for Law and Technology, where he designed and taught the first full-semester Intellectual Property Strategy course in the world and numerous other intellectual property courses.

Pete Tennent is currently IP Counsel, IBM Almaden Research Center, responsible for all intellectual property matters. Previously, he was IP Counsel with IBM Corporate Litigation, focusing on intellectual property litigation and pre-litigation matters. Prior to that he spent a three year international IBM assignment in Tokyo, Japan, where he served as Assistant General Counsel for IBM’s Asia Pacific operations, responsible for all intellectual property law matters. He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Appalachian State University, masters of computer science degree from the University of Virginia, and juris doctorate from Campbell University School of Law. Prior to joining IBM, Pete served as General Counsel for a software firm and also engaged the private practice of patent law.

Bijal V. Vakil is an intellectual property partner in White & Case LLP’s Palo Alto office.  His practice focuses on intellectual property litigation, strategic counseling, and technology licensing.  He has represented clients in intellectual property cases in numerous district courts, the International Trade Commission, and before the Federal Circuit.  Mr. Vakil has litigated patent cases involving a variety of technologies, including plasma television, digital and analog integrated circuits, semiconductor manufacturing, software, computer systems, consumer electronics, and telecommunications.  Mr. Vakil handles significant matters for entities of all sizes ranging from Fortune 500 companies to Silicon Valley start-ups.  He also represents clients in patent negotiations and licensing.

R. Polk Wagner focuses his research and teaching in intellectual property law and policy, with a special interest in patent law. He is the author of over fifteen articles on topics ranging from an empirical analysis of judicial decision-making in the patent law to the First Amendment status of software programs. His work has appeared in the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, among several others. He is a frequent lecturer on intellectual property topics, presenting his research at both academic institutions (such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of California at Berkeley) and prominent industry groups (such as the Intellectual Property Owner’s Organization, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel). In 2002, Wagner founded the FedCir Project (www.fedcir.org), a major ongoing effort to study the performance of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. One of the project’s first areas of research, the Claim Construction Project (www.claimconstruction.com) has emerged as an important and influential resource for patent lawyers and judges alike.

Glenn Westreich is a litigation partner in Winston & Strawn’s San Francisco office. He has more than 25 years of experience representing technology companies and their officers and directors in trials at the federal and state court level. Mr. Westreich has represented clients in litigation involving a broad range of issues, including patent, copyright and trademark infringement, trade secrets, bankruptcy, and general commercial litigation. Mr. Westreich has recently resolved a number of complex patent, technology, and bankruptcy cases and is counsel to the General Unsecured Creditors Trust in the bankruptcy of Excite@Home. Additional representative matters include the following: Prosecution of patent infringement cases involving electronic devices, search and catalogue aggregation software, and digital scanning technology. Defense of patent infringement claims involving digital editing and transmission of images. Prosecution and defense of breach of contract claims regarding provision of internet services totaling more than $200 million. Counseling and enforcement of patent portfolios in the areas of search technology, online advertising, and digital media.

Brian Wright‘s research interests include the economics of markets for storable commodities, including speculation and market stabilization, agricultural policy, the economic dynamic of research incentives including their implications for industrial structure, and the economics of conservation and innovation of genetic resources. He has served as the economist member of the Subcommittee on Proprietary Science and Technology of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and has also served as an expert witness regarding patent licensing and agricultural biotechnology as well as consulted for the United States Department of Justice. He received a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics (First Class Honors) from the University of New England, Armidale, and was awarded one of the two Frank Knox Fellowships given annually to Australian students by Harvard University, where he received an A.M. and Ph.D. in Economics. He then taught at Yale University and is now Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lewis Zaretzki directs ThinkFire’s IP consulting services. He assists clients in analyzing IP strategy and best practices, licensing opportunities and defensive licensing engagements. He also assists clients with patent brokerage transactions. Prior to joining ThinkFire, Lew served as a principal with The McKenna Group, a Silicon-Valley high tech strategy consulting firm founded by industry luminary Regis McKenna. At McKenna, he led strategy development for clients in telecom services, as well as equipment, software, security and consumer electronics. Lew worked with clients at startups, public firms, and VCs across the US and in Europe. Prior to joining McKenna, he worked in the telecom strategy practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the technology practice at Accenture. Lew holds an MBA from Duke University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan.