The IP Strategy Summit: Seattle

George Simion is Associate General Counsel and Senior Director of Intellectual Property at Palo Alto Networks. He is head of the IP group — managing the company’s global IP strategies and policies, IP litigation, opensource legal compliance, and IP matters related to new product introductions in cyber and network security areas. 

Rob is an intellectual property attorney with a focus on technology companies, particularly those developing advanced software, electrical circuits and optoelectronics.

With a background in electrical engineering and business, Rob works closely with clients to develop comprehensive and forward-thinking intellectual property strategies. He advises clients on the full spectrum of patent-related matters, from determining whether an invention warrants patent protection to navigating the complexities of patent prosecution both domestically and internationally. Once a patent is secured, Rob assists in maximizing its value through commercialization strategies, licensing agreements and enforcement actions. His proactive approach ensures that clients not only protect their innovations but also fully leverage their intellectual property for business growth.

Rob’s extensive experience covers national and foreign patent procurement, where he manages global patent portfolios across diverse industries. In addition to handling patent applications and filings, he is well-versed in IP transactions, playing a crucial role in corporate mergers, acquisitions and technology transfer deals. He frequently advises clients during the due diligence process, helping them assess the value and potential risks associated with intellectual property assets.

Rob represents clients before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board as well as in federal courts, offering creative and strategic solutions for defending, challenging and enforcing patent rights. His representation spans from early-stage startups to large multinational corporations, and he is skilled at resolving complex disputes in a cost-effective manner.

Before embarking on his legal career, Rob gained five years of hands-on experience in the engineering field. His work in real-time embedded systems, wireless communications and machine automation provided him with a deep understanding of the technologies at the heart of many patent matters he handles today.

Alexey Titov is an Intellectual Property Director at Stryker, a leading medical device company. His primary interests include defining IP strategy and patent development processes that maximize the business value of patent portfolios. Prior to joining Stryker, Alexey worked at a variety of intellectual property organizations including an IP consulting firm, a university technology transfer office, and a premier technology development company. Alexey is an inventor on 31 U.S. issued patents, has contributed a chapter to a book “Intellectual Property in Academia: A Practical Guide for Scientists and Engineers,” and is an author of several papers in the field of high energy and nuclear physics. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Rockefeller University, NY, and an M.S. in physics from Kharkov University, Ukraine.

I am a patent attorney focusing on biotechnology, chemical, pharmaceutical and medical device patent procurement and prosecution. I am Executive Director, IP at Seagen. I have a Bachelors in Biochemistry from Gonzaga University and a Masters in Chemistry from the University of Oregon. I received my J.D. Law degree from the University of Washington School of Law in 2004.

Rose serves as the global head of the Legal Intellectual Property (IP) group at Expedia with responsibility for a team handling all IP matters across Expedia and its various brands.

Prior to coming to Expedia, Rose served as Global Trademark Counsel managing the Cummins global trademark portfolio, which including responsibilities for advising on marketing and advertising matters and management of the anticounterfeit program.

Rose also provided IP support for multiple different Cummins business units, including support for the global patent portfolio development for those business units.

Rose is experienced in advising on intellectual property strategies for and implementation of complex transactions.

Prior to her time at Cummins, Rose was a federal employee for fifteen (15) years at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she established an Intellectual Property Law Practice Group within the Office of the General Counsel. Most recently, Rose was the Chief IP Counsel for DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where she serves as the intellectual property subject matter expert for and on behalf of CISA.

Rose studied at George Washington University, New York University School of Law and Manhattanville College.  She has a Master of Law (LL.M.) in Intellectual Property, a Juris Doctor (J.D.), and Bachelor of Arts Degree (B.A.).  She is a registered patent attorney with a discipline in Physics.

Bryan McWhorter focuses on patent procurement and dispute resolution, particularly for companies in the software, telecommunications, and food and beverage areas.

Bryan’s practice includes all aspects of patent development and acquisition for both utility and design patents, including identifying patentable concepts, drafting patent applications, and negotiating with patent offices to gain allowance of applications. His practice also focuses on helping clients to analyze, manage, and mitigate risks stemming from intellectual property, by conducting patent searches to identify potential risks, infringement analyses to quantify risks, and dispute resolutions and license negotiations to mitigate risks. A significant portion of Bryan’s practice involves appeals and other special proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Dr. Paul A. Maltseff is a highly experienced professional in all aspects of intellectual property creation and management. He graduated as an electronic engineer from Mozhaysky Military Aerospace Engineering Academy (MMAEA), Saint Petersburg, Russia, and received Ph.D. and D.Sc. in applied cybernetics from MMAEA in 1981 and 1989 respectively, and was conferred Juris Doctor from a School of Law, Seattle University in 2005. Until 1992 he had been a professor in MMAEA and a head of laboratory in the National Academy of Sciences of USSR. During 1992-2014, Dr. Maltseff had been involved in R&D projects with Versatron Corp. and Intermec Technologies Corp. on senior engineering positions and as a chief intellectual property counsel. In January of 2014, he joined Datalogic as a chief intellectual property counsel. Dr. Maltseff holds 30 U.S. patents and authored more than 50 publications.

David Sanker is a Mathematician, a Software Engineer, and a Patent Attorney. David earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Berkeley, and returned to Berkeley 15 years later for his law degree after careers in academia and production software development. As a Patent Attorney at Morgan Lewis, David was a patent litigator for four years and a patent practitioner for more than 13 years. As a patent practitioner, David works with clients, inventors, the U.S. Patent Office, and associates throughout the world to build strong IP protection. This has included a lot of work with AI, and David continues to speak and write about AI. David also has an entrepreneurial spirit, launching his own small patent firm SankerIP in February 2024. In this way, David is able to provide high-quality work without the very high billing rates and conflicts of large law firms.

Ms. Gloria Steinberg is a Senior Corporate Counsel of IP from NuScale Power, the industry leader in advanced nuclear reactor technology that is the only reactor to receive design approval from the US NRC. She specializes in handling complex IP-centric technology transactions and is a key negotiator for all technology licenses for advanced nuclear projects across the global market. She is an expert in working with various government agencies to manage federal contracts and government sponsored projects, and she also advises on corporate governance and compliance, financings, and M&A due diligence. Gloria is a Seattle native and served in the US Army for over a decade before her current tenure at NuScale.

Jay Wilusz is a Senior Corporate Counsel for Bristol Myers Squibb. Prior to his position at BMS, Jay established a patent law firm in Washington State. His clients included academic institutions and large and small companies. He procures and defends intellectual property rights and negotiates transactions and acquisitions for biopharma interests. Those interests include small molecule, biotech, and cellular therapies, AI and ML initiatives for drug discovery, clinical innovations, and patient disease monitoring tools. Jay has collaborated to optimize exclusivity for more than 100 products with combined annual sales of over 80 billion dollars for his clients. He has secured IP rights for assets that span drug discovery, clinical development, and patient centric innovations. Jay has previously held roles as Senior VP of IP and Licensing at Makai Biotechnology, Life Cycle Management Lead at Sanofi, and VP of IP at Novartis. He is a USPTO registered patent attorney and admitted to practice law in New Jersey and Washington.

Jennifer is an experienced litigator. As a partner at Delaware law firm Morris Nichols, she focuses on patent, trademark, trade secrets, and other complex intellectual property disputes in federal and state court. Her experience encompasses all aspects of litigation from outset to trial and through appeal in both lead counsel and co-counsel roles.

An MIT graduate with degrees in electrical engineering & computer science and management, she frequently draws on her technical background in her patent litigation work.

Nicholas Kim is a Senior Corporate Counsel at Microsoft Corporation and focuses on IP litigation. Mr. Kim joined Microsoft from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he was a trial attorney in the Intellectual Property Section. Before that, Mr. Kim was a patent attorney in private practice in Washington, DC.

Jessica is an intellectual property litigator with a focus on patent and trade secret litigation. She has represented clients in a variety of technological fields, including AI, data analytics, gaming, cloud-computing, and internet-related technologies, as well as consumer goods and life sciences companies. She has experience in all aspects of litigation, from pre-litigation dispute resolution, through pleadings, discovery, claim construction summary judgment, trial, and appeal. Jessica is actively involved in the Washington legal community, including serving on the executive board of the Seattle Intellectual Property Inn of Court. She is a former board member of Mother Attorney Mentoring Association of Seattle, an organization designed to empower female attorneys and encourage professional success.

Scott focuses on intellectual property litigation, representing clients in courts throughout the U.S. He has had great success both obtaining relief for intellectual property owners and defending suits in a wide range of technical fields in cases involving patent, trade secret, unfair competition, employment agreement, copyright, DMCA, trademark, trade dress, product configuration, and false advertising claims.

Scott has litigated cases involving chemical, mechanical, internet, software, encryption, computer, clean energy, automotive, apparel, food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical technologies. Representing some of the largest companies in the world as well as smaller businesses and start-ups, he has succeeded for clients such as Adobe, British Airways, Columbia River Knife & Tool, Capsugel, Costco, Danner, DexCom, Intuit, Microsoft, Nightforce, Phibro Animal Health Corporation, SAP, SunModo, Twitter, and Yelp.

Describing his past success and approach with the Klarquist litigation team, IAM Patent 1000 recently lauded Scott’s ability to assess the best strategies and his talent for understanding and simplifying complex technology, and noted that Scott will “always put your objectives first and act like a part of your team.”

Scott joined Klarquist as an associate in 2002 and became partner in 2008.

Trey Powers, Ph.D., is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Trial & Appellate and Biotechnology & Chemical Practice Groups and co-chairs the firm’s PTAB Trials practice. He has served as counsel on about one hundred inter partes review and post-grant review proceedings before the PTAB.

Trey specializes in the interface between district court litigation and PTAB proceedings, securing eight-figure jury verdicts for his clients as part of a comprehensive enforcement strategy. He also assists clients with U.S. ITC investigations under §337, evaluates patent portfolios, drafts patent applications, prosecutes interferences, and provides intellectual property strategic advice.

Trey has significant technical experience in aging, surgery, stem cell biology, microbiology, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and biotechnology.

Kristin’s practice focuses exclusively on intellectual property litigation, including patent, trademark, and trade dress cases. She has extensive experience handling all phases of litigation, from obtaining favorable results in early motion practice, to efficient management of cases through discovery, claim construction, summary judgment and trial. She has a national trial practice, litigating in federal district courts around the country, and has argued at the Federal Circuit. Kristin is the chair of the Litigation practice group and has served in the past as the firm’s managing partner.

Kristin’s knowledge of patent damages is well respected in the industry. In addition to being a regular presenter on the topic, she is the current chair of the Damages Subcommittee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Patent Litigation Committee. In patent cases, Kristin’s strategy is to collaborate with damages experts early in the case to develop effective and compelling theories of patent damages to present to juries and judges, as well as encourage early pre-trial settlements.

Kristin is also committed to increasing diversity within the firm and the profession at large. In addition to mentoring and encouraging other female attorneys, she has helped coordinate the firm’s partnership and support of AIPLA’s Women in IP Law Committee.

Kristin joined Klarquist in 1999 as a lateral associate and became partner in 2004.

The Honorable Jacqueline (Jackie) Wright Bonilla serves as Deputy Chief Administrative Patent Judge at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Since her appointment as an Administrative Patent Judge in January 2012, she has conducted numerous post-grant trial proceedings under the America Invents Act, heard appeals from adverse examiner decisions in patent applications and reexamination proceedings, and rendered decisions in interferences.
Judge Bonilla has served in several leadership positions at the USPTO, including her current role as the Deputy Chief Administrative Patent Judge, and a detail assignment as Senior Legal Advisor to the Director of the USPTO. She helps shape agency policy as it relates to PTAB practice and lead the PTAB as it handles cases and renders decisions in all areas of jurisdiction.
Prior to joining the USPTO, Judge Bonilla worked in private practice, including as a partner at Foley & Lardner, LLP. She also served as a judicial law clerk to the now-retired Chief Judge Randall Rader at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Judge Bonilla graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jessica is an intellectual property litigator with a focus on patent and trade secret litigation. She has represented clients in a variety of technological fields, including AI, data analytics, gaming, cloud-computing, and internet-related technologies, as well as consumer goods and life sciences companies. She has experience in all aspects of litigation, from pre-litigation dispute resolution, through pleadings, discovery, claim construction summary judgment, trial, and appeal. Jessica is actively involved in the Washington legal community, including serving on the executive board of the Seattle Intellectual Property Inn of Court. She is a former board member of Mother Attorney Mentoring Association of Seattle, an organization designed to empower female attorneys and encourage professional success.

David Sanker is a Mathematician, a Software Engineer, and a Patent Attorney. David earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Berkeley, and returned to Berkeley 15 years later for his law degree after careers in academia and production software development. As a Patent Attorney at Morgan Lewis, David was a patent litigator for four years and a patent practitioner for more than 13 years. As a patent practitioner, David works with clients, inventors, the U.S. Patent Office, and associates throughout the world to build strong IP protection. This has included a lot of work with AI, and David continues to speak and write about AI. David also has an entrepreneurial spirit, launching his own small patent firm SankerIP in February 2024. In this way, David is able to provide high-quality work without the very high billing rates and conflicts of large law firms.