Charles Kim
USPTO
Director, Office of Petitions
Charles Kim is the director of the Office of Petitions, part of the Office of Patent Examination Policy, at the USPTO, which reviews and decides petitions, requests, and related enquiries regarding the filing of patent applications, revival of abandoned applications, reinstatement of expired patents, withdrawal of patent applications from issue, small entity entitlement, review of previous decisions of the technology centers, suspension of regulations, and questions not specifically provided for by regulations. He has a BS degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University and received his JD degree from George Washington University Law School.

Alvin Lam
Maucher Jenkins
Patent Attorney, Partner
Alvin Lam is a partner in the patent group of Maucher Jenkins’ London office. He graduated in 2001 with a joint degree in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science from the University of Edinburgh, and entered the patent profession amid the developing landscape of patenting computer and software-related inventions in the UK and Europe. His practice specialisation has remained in advising and obtaining patents for high-tech clients in the AI and computing fields. Lam has extensive experience with drafting and prosecuting patent applications, global patent portfolio management and filing strategy advice, prior art and freedom to operate searching and advisory work.

Anna Maria Lagerqvist Gahm
Volvo Car Corporation
Senior IP Counsel / Deputy Chief IP Counsel
Anna Maria Lagerqvist Gahm is part of a team with global corporate responsibility for all IP related matters within Volvo Cars, working closely with R&D, strategic product planning, marketing, purchasing, and the legal department. She is head of IP litigation and member of a cross-functional core business team coordinating all alliances within Volvo Cars and building up and negotiating cooperation agreements with external partners. She has 15-plus years of experience in IP, contracting and licensing and is a speaker in international IP forums and a lecturer at university level.

Nathan Zhang
Applied Materials, Inc.
Counsel, Global Litigation and Investigations
Nate Zhang serves as in-house litigation counsel for Applied Materials, managing internal investigations and offensive and defensive IP litigation. Previously, at White & Case LLP he split his practice between patent litigation, prosecution, and licensing. He has litigated cases in district court, before the PTAB, and in the ITC representing various high-tech and medical device clients including Google, LG, and Abiomed. He was also a hardware engineer at NVIDIA, specialising in mixed-signal circuit design. Zhang earned his JD from UC Davis School of Law and his BS in electrical engineering from UCLA.

Bill LaFontaine
International Business Machines Corporation
General Manager - Intellectual Property
Dr William R. LaFontaine Jr is a recognised leader in the areas of technology licensing, technology partnerships and IP. As general manager of IP at IBM, LaFontaine and his team work at the intersection of research, business units and clients to accelerate market introduction of new technologies including cognitive computing. He is responsible for delivering over a billion dollars in joint development, technology transfer and patent licensing annually. In his 28 years at IBM, LaFontaine has been the COO for IBM’s Research division, general manager of Global Technology Services in Middle East and Africa and GM of worldwide semiconductor and technology sales.

Bao Tran
Plant Grow Inc
Patent Counsel
Bao Tran Specializes in building intellectual property portfolio (IP) for clients; IP generation and procurement; manage IP policies (policy drafting, training, and auditing); perform design-around exercises on behalf of clients as part of the IP due diligence; help clients monetize their IP portfolio. He has done numerous AI patents and have applied Tensorflow and recurrent neural networks to patent diagnostic and support tools and is familiar with 101 issues as applied to AI applications as well as other interesting issues relating to inventorship when AI is involved, among others.

Richard Johnson
Mewburn Ellis LLP
Partner, Patent Attorney
Richard Johnson is a partner at Mewburn Ellis with a focus on electronics and computing. He deals with patent prosecution and the development and management of patent portfolios for clients in the UK and abroad. He is experienced in original drafting work and is particularly knowledgeable about the patentability of software and business-related inventions at the EPO and the UK IP Office. Johnson has a wide range of industry experience including electronics and electronic engineering, medtech, semiconductors, structural and mechanical engineering, telecommunications, nanotech, consumer products and cleantech, and obtaining Registered Community Designs.

Ryan Richardson
Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox
Director
Ryan C. Richardson is a director in Sterne Kessler’s electronics and trial & appellate practice groups. His practice focuses on post-grant proceedings before the PTAB at the USPTO, as well as US district court litigation and fast-track section 337 investigations before the US International Trade Commission. Richardson has developed specialised knowledge and expertise in the area of standard essential patents and FRAND licensing associated with them. He also has significant experience in handling the preparation and prosecution of US and foreign patent applications for a wide range of entities.

David Chan
Western Digital
Senior Patent Counsel
David Chan is a senior patent counsel at Western Digital, where he manages a diverse patent portfolio covering data storage products and the company’s exploratory research efforts. His primary focus includes invention evaluation metrics, portfolio prosecution strategies, and IP issues related to supply chains and customer relationships. He joined Western Digital in 2011, after being an associate at Knobbe Martens and a patent agent at Coudert Brothers. He is a graduate of Loyola Law School and Harvey Mudd College.

David Sanker
Morgan Lewis & Bockius
Patent Law Attorney
Morgan Lewis partner David V. Sanker PhD works with clients to build strong patent portfolios in a variety of areas, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, data visualisation software, large-scale database architecture and storage infrastructure, data analytics software, and touch screen technology. Sanker also handles reexaminations before the USPTO, and represents clients in patent litigation, including cases before the US International Trade Commission, the US Federal Circuit, and in federal district courts. He earned a PhD in mathematics and worked as a software engineer for 12 years developing large-scale data processing applications.

Eric Sutton
Oracle
Senior Patent Counsel
Eric Sutton is a Senior Patent Counsel at Oracle in Redwood Shores, California, where he manages patent portfolios related to cloud management, automation, data and marketing clouds, artificial intelligence, social, and enterprise applications. At Oracle, Mr. Sutton also runs an inter-company patent quality study, which has resulted in submissions and presentations to the USPTO as part of the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative and subject matter eligibility updates, and articles published on Patently-O, IP Watchdog, and Patnotechnic, the last of which is a blog operated by Mr. Sutton on the big data analysis and automation of patent work.

Freddy Thiel
Kilburn Strode US PC
VP San Francisco Liaison Office
Freddy Thiel is the VP of the San Francisco Liaison Office for Kilburn & Strode, one of Europe’s leading IP firms. He acts as a client liaison in the Silicon Valley and the wider US. Thiel is a European Patent Attorney who has a strong understanding of in-house IP issues. In his 17-year career, he has analysed over 1,000 invention disclosures, with half leading to patent filings while drafting applications on a majority of these himself. He spent 10 years at Orange as the patent counsel in charge of developing the IP portfolio for its international labs.

Andrew Radsch
Ropes & Gray
IP Litigation Partner
Andrew Radsch is an experienced trial lawyer in Ropes & Gray’s intellectual property litigation group, where he represents clients in patent and trade secret litigation in jurisdictions across the country. He has experience across a spectrum of industries and technologies, including computer software and hardware, consumer electronics, wireless communications, semiconductor manufacturing, and medical devices. Radsch, who has been selected by his peers as a Super Lawyers Rising Star in IP Litigation, works frequently with clients to develop and execute on offensive and defensive IP and licensing strategies.

Jennifer Lane Spaith
Dorsey & Whitney
Partner
Jennifer Lane Spaith is a partner in the Intellectual Property Group at Dorsey & Whitney, an international law firm with more than 80 attorneys focused on IP matters. She represents companies of all sizes in patent prosecution and portfolio management. She routinely works with a wide array of technologies including artificial intelligence systems used in the medical and electronics industries. Spaith holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. In addition to maintaining a patent procurement practice, she frequently advises clients on transactional matters involving technology and IP.

Paul Hunter
Foley & Lardner LLP
Partner
Paul S. Hunter is an IP lawyer, managing partner of the San Diego Office, and chair of the firm’s electronics practice. His experience covers a wide range of legal and business issues relating to electronics, computer hardware/software, AI, machine learning, semiconductors, and memory. Hunter assists companies in maximising the value of their technology and has created and maintained valuable patent programmes for companies of all sizes. He is particularly experienced at navigating the challenges in patenting software. He assists companies in negotiations and agreements related to licences, joint ventures, and other business arrangements involving technology.

David Dutcher
Western Digital Corp
Chief Patent Counsel
David Dutcher currently serves as Chief Patent Counsel at Western Digital Corporation, where he leads a patent team of 19 professionals and is responsible for WD’s portfolio of 17,000+ patent assets. David is also an Adjunct Professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham
Young University. Prior to WD's acquisition of SanDisk, David served as Senior Director, IP at SanDisk, and Associate General Counsel and Vice President, Intellectual Property, at Fusion-io, which was acquired by SanDisk. David joined Fusion-io from Intellectual Ventures, where he
served as Head of Prosecution and Asset Management. David received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School and his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, summa cum laude, from Brigham Young University.

Hanna Steinbach
Medallia
Legal Director - Head of Enterprise
Hanna Steinbach is a legal director at Medallia, a leading pre-IPO SaaS company in the customer experience space, in San Mateo. She leads a team of three commercial lawyers and focuses on tech transactions, IP and privacy. Steinbach is the co-founder of the Association of International Lawyers in the Bay Area. She has worked at international law firms in San Francisco, Berlin and Vienna and served as an associate officer at WIPO sponsored by the German government. She holds law degrees from Vienna University, Stockholm University and UC Berkeley School of Law.

Mehul Shah
Kudelski/Nagra
Director, Patent Management
Mehul Shah manages IP for content distribution platforms and products (DTV, OpenTV), cybersecurity services/products and research (Kudelski Security), and Kudelski startup businesses. He is responsible for IP strategy, IP counselling and due diligence, and patent prosecution management for development and research with an emphasis on US and EP protection. Before joining the Kudelski Group, he practised as an associate for patent prosecution. He studied computer science at the University of California, San Diego, and practised as a software engineer/developer at Sun Microsystems and IBM in data management and storage software technology.