Matthew Bye
Matthew Bye is Senior Competition Counsel at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View. In this role, he advises the company on a wide range of competition issues, including mergers & acquisitions, product design, and government investigations.
Matthew previously worked at the Federal Trade Commission and in the antitrust practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Washington DC. During his tenure at the FTC, Matthew served as an attorney advisor to former Commissioner Orson Swindle, whom he advised on antitrust and consumer protection matters. Matthew also worked on designated projects for former Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.
From 2001 through 2004, Matthew was an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel for Policy Studies, where he worked on a team that authored various FTC reports, including “To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition Law and Patent Law Policy,” and “Generic Drug Entry Prior to Patent Expiration.”
Matthew is a recipient of the FTC’s Stephen Nye Award, which is the highest award given to a junior attorney, as well as an Award for Meritorious Service. Matthew served on the editorial board for the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Developments (6th ed.) and was formerly a chair of the ABA Antitrust Section’s Technology Resources Committee. He has written about and spoken at numerous conferences across the U.S. on antitrust issues involving the Internet, patents, and standard setting.
Andy Culbert
Andy Culbert received
a bachelor of arts degree in biology from Williams College,
Williamstown, Mass. After college, he served in the Peace Corps for two
years in Butembo, Congo Zaire), teaching biology, chemistry, physics and
mathematics in French to Congolese high school students. At William
& Mary Law School, Andy was a Legal Writing Course Instructor and a
member of the William & Mary Law Review. Following law school, he
worked in the litigation department and became a partner at Drinker,
Biddle & Reath, LLC, where he focused mainly on intellectual
property law. Andy is currently Associate General Counsel for Microsoft
Corporation and head of Microsoft’s worldwide patent infringement
docket. He manages all of Microsoft’s worldwide patent infringement
litigation, including hiring and supervising of all outside counsel,
directing strategic and tactical handling of the cases (currently about
50), editing briefs and presenting oral arguments, and advising the
client about its patent assets and liabilities. Andy is also an adjunct
professor in the intellectual property LLM program at the University of
Washington School of Law. He has tried a number of cases in federal
courts across the country, and has written and spoken extensively on
intellectual property issues
Gail F. Levine
Gail Levine is Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property at Verizon Communications Inc. She is responsible for developing the patent portfolio and patent advocacy program for Verizon and Verizon Wireless. Before that, she handled antitrust and patent issues as assistant general counsel at Verizon.
Before joining Verizon, Gail was an attorney advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Deborah Platt Majoras. She advised the Chairman on antitrust and intellectual property issues. Before joining the Chairman’s office, Gail was the FTC’s Deputy Assistant General Counsel. She was a significant contributor to the 2003 FTC report on intellectual property and innovation, and she co-authored many other FTC reports on antitrust and high-tech issues.
Gail serves on the ABA Antitrust Section’s Transition Task Force, which is making recommendations to the incoming administration on antitrust and consumer protection issues. Gail has co-chaired the Communications & Digital Technology Industries Committee of the ABA’s Antitrust Section, served on the ABA’s Federal Pleading Task Force, and edited the ABA’s 2007 handbook on antitrust and intellectual property.
Before joining the FTC, Ms. Levine was a trial lawyer in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Levine clerked for Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Amy Marasco
Amy is the General Manager for Standards Strategy at
Microsoft, and she leads a team that addresses strategic policy and
engagement issues on a corporate-wide, global basis.
Amy regularly engages in policy discussions
involving standards, intellectual property rights and competition law
issues at numerous standards bodies and in many other forums. Among
other things, she is one of three rapporteurs at the TSB Director’s IPR
Ad Hoc Group at the ITU-T, Co-Chairman of the Standards Policy
Committee at the Intellectual Property Owners Association, Chairman of
Standards and IPR Policy Committee at the Telecommunications Industry
Association, and Vice Chairman of the IPR Policy Committee at the
American National Standards Institute. She has testified or given
presentations on standards-related policy issues upon request by the
U.S. Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice (Antitrust
Division), the European Commission, METI (the Japanese Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry), and CESI and CNIS (in the People’s
Republic of China).
Amy joined Microsoft after serving as the Vice
President and General Counsel of the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI) from 1994-2004. Prior to joining ANSI, Amy was an
attorney with the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in its
New York office.
Erica Mintzer
Erica Mintzer is Senior
Counsel for Competition and Technology in the Antitrust
Division at the U.S. Department of Justice where she
focuses on civil investigations involving
high-technology and IP-intensive industries, and
advising the Division on issues where intellectual
property and antitrust laws and policies intersect.
Before joining the Antitrust Division in January 2010,
Ms. Mintzer was an attorney at Hogan & Hartson (now
Hogan Lovells), where she worked with high-technology
clients on a wide range of antitrust issues, including
mergers and acquisitions, IP licensing, patent
settlements, patent pools and standard setting
activities. Before joining Hogan & Hartson, Ms.
Mintzer was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission,
where she focused on merger and non-merger
investigations in high-technology, Internet and media
and entertainment industries. Ms. Mintzer graduated magna
cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Tufts
University, before receiving a law degree from The
University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters’ of Science
from The California Institute of Technology.
Earl Nied
Earl Nied is the Program Director of Standards and
Intellectual Property Rights for Intel Corporation’s Global Public
Policy Group. Earl is responsible for Intel’s worldwide policies on
Intellectual Property Rights issues relating to Standards. He chairs
the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Intellectual Property
Rights Policy Committee (IPRPC) and serves on the ANSI Board of
Directors. He has served as vice chair of the IPRPC, chaired the ANSI
Patent Group, and received a 2009 ANSI Meritorious Service Award. He is
an active participant in the: International Telecommunications Union
Telecommunication (ITU-T) Standardization Sector IPR Ad Hoc Committee
and has been heavily involved in drafting the ISO/IEC/ITU Common Patent
policy and guidelines; Digital Europe trade association IPR and
Interoperability subcommittees; European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI) IPR Committee; Intellectual Property Owners
Association (IPO) Standards Setting Committee; and American Bar
Association (ABA) Committee on Technical Standardization. He
participated in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Patent Policy
Working Group in the formation of the current W3C patent policy. In
addition, Earl has been a consultant to several international standards
development organizations including the Audio Video Coding Standard
Workgroup of China (AVS) and the China Electronics Standardization
Institute (CESI). Earl’s email is earl.nied@intel.com
and work number in Hillsboro, Oregon, U.S.A. is +1-503-712-3397.
Gil Ohana
Gil Ohana is Senior Director, Antitrust and Competition for Cisco Systems, the leading manufacturer of networking equipment for the Internet. Gil regularly advises Cisco on antitrust issues relating to mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, standard setting, distribution, intellectual property licensing, and government investigations, and government and private litigation. Gil writes and speaks regularly on antitrust issues in mergers and acquisitions, as well as IP licensing, standard-setting, antitrust issues in patent litigation, and other subjects at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property law. He has participated in discussions of standards development organization IPR policies at leading SDOs such as ANSI, ETSI, IEEE-SA, and IETF.
From 1993 through 1996, Gil was a trial attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he participated in the Division’s investigation of Microsoft’s software licensing practices and its successful court challenge to Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Intuit.
Gil received his law degree from Columbia University, where he was articles editor of the Law Review, and his B.A. from Harvard College. He is admitted to the bars of California and the District of Columbia.