Nathan Zhang
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
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
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.
David Chan
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.
Hanna Steinbach
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
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.
David Sanker
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.
Andrew Radsch
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.
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Aaron Oakley
Hogan Lovells
Counsel
Aaron Oakley is a multi-levelled lawyer with excellent client services who sees intellectual property matters from technological, business, and legal points of view. He began his professional career as an electrical and computer engineer solving technical problems for companies in the medical, energy, and defence industries. Through his years designing software and embedded systems, Oakley perfected his attention-to-detail skills and the drive for the comprehensive understanding that he brings to his legal practice. With his multidisciplinary mindset and focus, he has deep experience in representing clients in disputes, counselling, transactions, and patent prosecution.
Diane Gabl Kratz
Diane Gabl Kratz
Seagate Technology
Senior Intellectual Property Counsel
Diane is an IAM 300 World's Leading IP Strategist, a USPTO-registered patent attorney, and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E, CIPP/US). At Seagate, she manages patent portfolios, advising on strategy, prosecution, and IP-related transactions. She also leads Seagate’s global trademark portfolio. A four-time Super Lawyers Rising Star, Diane previously practiced IP litigation at Morrison & Foerster and Sidley Austin. She has guest lectured at Stanford University’s Management Science & Engineering Department, the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and the Practising Law Institute (PLI). She received her J.D. from the University of Chicago and Physics degree from Cornell University.
Ryan Richardson
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.
Freddy Thiel
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.
Suganda Jutamulia
Suganda Jutamulia
OmniVision Technologies
Senior Principal Patent Agent
Suganda Jutamulia is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the International Society for Optics and Photonics. He has a PhD in electronics engineering from Hokkaido University (Japan). Prior to practising as a registered patent agent before the USPTO, he was an instructor and professor in academic institutions, and an engineer and researcher working in industry. He is coauthor or coeditor of several books. He has chaired several technical conferences, and served on editorial boards. He has written almost 150 journal and conference publications, and 16 US patents.
Ednaldo Silva
Ednaldo Silva
Royaltystat
Founder & Director
Ednaldo Silva has a PhD in economics from the University of California (Berkeley) and was the first economic adviser at the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel, a drafting member of the US transfer pricing (TP) regulations and first economist in the Advance Pricing Agreement programme. Silva introduced the “comparable profits method” and “best method” rule and is a recognised TP and intangibles valuation expert. He has served as economic expert to government and MNE on corporate income tax and IP litigations, including in GlaxoSmithKline Holdings (Americas) v Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Jennifer Lane Spaith
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.
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S H Michael Kim
Rovi Corporation a TiVo Company
Senior Director - Patent Prosecution
Michael Kim has extensive patent prosecution, litigation and licensing experience as an attorney in law firms and in-house counsel in Silicon Valley. Kim has been IP litigator and trial counsel for numerous proceedings at the International Trade Commission and the US district and state court relating to patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation. At Rovi/TiVo, Kim contributes to the success of growing TiVo’s intellectual property and licensing of IP assets including thousands of worldwide patents and pending patent applications directed to digital entertainment technology.
Tom McMasters
Tom McMasters
Patent Attorney
Tom McMasters is a patent lawyer specialising in computing and semiconductor technologies. From 2016 to 2019 he worked at ASML’s Netherlands headquarters as part of the team defending ASML in worldwide patent litigation against one of its chief competitors. Previously, he managed patent litigation for Lenovo, and has also held in-house positions at EMC and Sybase. In private practice McMasters was a partner at Fredrikson & Byron, a Minneapolis law firm with a Chambers-ranked IP practice. He has an MS in computer science and obtained his law degree from the University of Michigan
Harry Hutchinson
Harry Hutchinson
HGF
Senior Partner
Harry Hutchinson trained at IBM as a patent attorney and developed an understanding of the relationship between IP and computer-related inventions. He drafted and prosecuted patent applications in disciplines spanning the full breadth of IBM’s technology. Hutchinson has continued this passion for protecting software over the last couple of decades in private practice and, more recently, is bringing that expertise to bear in other fields such as autonomous vehicles, drones and extending it into AI. He has detailed working knowledge of various 3GPP standards, and the full range of 802/11 standards.
Nicholas Noble
Nicholas Noble
Kilburn Strode LLP
Senior Associate Patent Attorney
Nick Noble specialises in high-tech patent work, in particular in the fields of telecommunications, computer-implemented inventions, electronics, and medical devices. He is a prosecution specialist, and has prosecuted thousands of applications; he advises his clients on all aspects of patent protection, including the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, opposition proceedings, and infringement and validity opinions. He has particular experience of standards-related patent matters. Noble has a wide range of clients—from one-man bands to multinational corporations—and is mindful always to provide commercially relevant advice that takes into account his clients’ needs.
Thomas Hamer
Thomas Hamer
Kilburn & Strode LLP
VP of San Francisco liaison office
Tom Hamer is a UK and European patent attorney based in California, where he is a vice president of Kilburn & Strode’s San Francisco liaison office. Kilburn & Strode is one of Europe’s leading firms for patent and trademark law. Before pursuing a legal career, Hamer earned his Master’s degree in physics. His areas of expertise include medical devices, software, artificial intelligence, and mathematical algorithms.