The 3rd Annual IP Defense Summit: Seattle

John J Murphy is director of corporate intellectual property, legal affairs at T-Mobile USA, Inc, where he is responsible for all aspects of IP asset development, use and management for a leading US wireless company. He joined T-Mobile in 2006 and established a team which has built a global patent portfolio covering every aspect of T-Mobile’s business. Thanks to a strategic focus on encouraging innovation in new technologies, T-Mobile USA has been ranked among the top 20 strongest patent portfolios in the communications/internet services category in IEEE Spectrum magazine’s annual Patent Power Scorecard for five years running (2013-2017).

Mr Murphy has responsibility for and is experienced in a range of IP issues and strategies, including:

• internal innovation programme development;
• standard-setting organisation participation and responsibilities;
• global and domestic brand management and enforcement;
• negotiation of IP risk/indemnification provisions in major equipment and software supply agreements;
• mitigation of IP litigation risk and IP litigation management;
• legislative and regulatory advocacy on IP subjects;
• in-bound and out-bound patent and trademark licensing and acquisition transactions;
• M&A and corporate finance due diligence projects;
• technology and development agreement drafting and negotiation; and
• open source software review and approval.

Earlier in his career, Mr Murphy was director of business and legal affairs at Warner Bros Online, where he negotiated the first wireless content licences for such premier Warner Bros properties as Harry Potter, Batman and Looney Tunes. Before Warner Bros, he was a patent and IP litigation and technology transactions attorney at Jones Day in Los Angeles and McBride, Baker & Coles in Chicago.

Mr Murphy received his JD from Northwestern University in 1997 and his BA from Harvard College in 1989.

Paul S. Hansra has been practicing intellectual property (IP) law since 1992. He focuses on procuring patents, trademarks, and copyrights for his clients. He has extensive experience in acquiring IP protection both domestically and internationally.

In addition to preparing patent, trademark and copyright applications, Paul renders opinions with respect to invention patentability, patent invalidity, patent infringement and trademark availability. Paul has significant knowledge in negotiating IP license agreements and performs due diligence studies of IP portfolios in connection with corporate mergers and acquisitions. He also provides IP litigation support from both a legal and a technical perspective.

Paul's clients have ranged from startup businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Some of the technology areas in which he has represented clients include computer disk drives, navigation systems, access control systems, medical devices, consumer-facing coin-counting machines, beverage containers, gaming machines, internal combustion engines, wind turbines, wireless communication systems, sports training systems and consumer electronics accessories.

Specialties: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
IP Procurement - Domestic and International
IP Opinions
IP Due Diligence
IP Licensing

 

Rick Edge is the Senior Corporate Counsel at the Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) in Pullman, (WA). Rick Edge is a licensed patent attorney with over 12 years of experience with SEL.  Rick handles all aspects of the company's IP practice, as its first in-house IP counsel.  Through SEL's substantial period of growth, Rick has maintained a hands-on practice including patent and trademark preparation and prosecution, contract negotiation, licensing, government contracting, and employee training, while overseeing outside counsel on various projects.  Rick’s focus is Intellectual Property and he has established and led in-house intellectual property practice. Rick oversees U.S. and foreign outside counsel on all IP matters. Rick prepares and prosecutes patent and trademark applications. Rick counsels on licensing matters, reviews licensing agreements and oversees non-disclosure agreements. He also, assists contract administrators in purchasing, sales, government and other contract matters including preparing and reviewing contract language. Rick provides counsel to senior management in the areas of patent and trademark protection, trade secret protection, strategy, and freedom-to-operate analysis.  Rick has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Utah, is a licensed Utah bar member, and is licensed to practice before the USPTO.  

Srikant Viswanadham's practice spans a number of areas of intellectual property law including IP procurement, strategic IP counseling, IP portfolio management, and opinion work. Srikant focuses his practice on patent application preparation and patent procurement. Srikant has prepared hundreds of patent applications and prosecuted several hundred more directed to a wide variety of technological areas including computer hardware and software, business methods, electrical and electro-mechanical devices and systems, and oil and gas technologies. Srikant also has experience conducting due diligence reviews as part of mergers and acquisitions and preparing freedom-to-operate, invalidity, and non-infringement opinions. Srikant's prior experience further includes assisting in various aspects of patent litigation including formulating invalidity and infringement positions, drafting and responding to discovery requests, and managing document review.

Stephen is currently Senior Corporate Counsel in T-Mobile’s Litigation Group. At T-Mobile, he manages patent and other intellectual property litigation and provides strategic counseling on various intellectual property matters. Prior to joining T-Mobile, Stephen served as Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft Corporation where he managed U.S. and international patent litigation in Microsoft’s Litigation Group dating back to 2001, and later handled various patent counseling, dispute resolution, and licensing related issues as part of Microsoft’s Innovation and Intellectual Property Group. As the second patent litigator hired at Microsoft, Stephen has been responsible for many large-scale and high stakes patent litigation matters, including the Lucent v. Microsoft series of cases that are cited to frequently in the context of patent damages reform. Prior to Microsoft, Stephen practiced at Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley, California, where he also focused on patent litigation and other intellectual property disputes. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the UCLA School of Law.

Mark Taylor is an Assistant General Counsel in the Litigation, Competition, and Compliance Group at Microsoft, where he focuses on patent litigation.  Before joining Microsoft, he was a partner in the IP group at Morgan Lewis, where he represented clients involved in IP litigation at the ITC and in district court.  He also spent time on secondment to the IP Litigation group at Hewlett-Packard Company.  Mark studied biomedical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University and attended the George Washington University Law School.

Steve is Assistant General Counsel - EcoBuildings at Schneider-Electric. He has over a decade of experience in IP, including litigation, transactions, M&A, portfolio management and prosecution. Commercial lawyer with increasing levels of responsibility and experience leading a broad range of teams to support various functions and regional subsidiaries of Schneider Electric SE, a global leader in energy management headquartered in Paris, France with operations in 130 countries and over $28 billion in revenue in 2016

He is a business focused attorney with extensive experience counseling businesses and a reputation for delivering pragmatic and coherent solutions to complex situations. Well developed interpersonal skills demonstrated by effective communication, successful negotiation and consensus building.
Successfully led teams supporting intellectual property, litigation and claims, and commercial contracting functions.

Russ Emerson is an experienced litigator and first-chair trial lawyer who has served as lead counsel in scores of patent infringement and other intellectual property cases in Texas and across the country. His cases have involved a wide variety of technologies, from semiconductors to lasers, medical devices to pharmaceutical products, and drilling technology to information theory.

A former naval officer, Russ leads litigation and trial teams sized to effectively and efficiently accomplish his clients’ goals. As a registered patent lawyer with a degree in mechanical engineering and experience in nuclear engineering, Russ combines fluency with technology with the ability to explain that technology to judges and juries alike.

David Killough is an Assistant General Counsel in the Litigation, Competition and Compliance Group of Microsoft’s Legal and Corporate Affairs department. Killough’s principal responsibility is management of Microsoft patent litigation matters in the U.S. and internationally. Before joining Microsoft in 2008, Killough was a partner of the firm Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. in Austin, Texas, where he co-headed the Intellectual Property & Technical Litigation Section, and before that was a partner of the firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP in California. He received his B.A. degree from North Texas State University in 1977 and his J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law in 1983. While in private practice, Killough was listed in The Best Lawyers in America and in Texas Super Lawyers.

Specialties: General corporate and intellectual property transactions and counseling, including licensing, development, and distribution transactions, mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financings, securities law compliance, and corporate governance. Experience in a variety of industries, including software, internet, life sciences, medical devices, retail, and communications.

Russ's career has focused on patent and trade secret disputes and related counseling. He presently is in-house at Intellectual Ventures managing the defense of IV's patents in IPR, CBM, PGR, and re-examination proceedings at the USPTO. While in private practice, Russ represented plaintiffs and defendants, large and small, from a wide range of industries in litigation throughout the country. Russ's experience spans the entire lifecycle of litigation, from pre-suit investigation through appeal to the U.S. Federal Circuit and in litigation before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. With an educational background in chemistry and mathematics, Russ has represented clients in industries as varied as hedge funds and biomedical devices to pharmaceuticals and agricultural equipment. Much of the latter years of Russ's private practice career were focused on Hatch Waxman litigation on behalf of generic pharmaceutical companies or infringement litigation on behalf of nutraceutical manufacturers. This breadth of experience provides an important perspective on providing effective explanations of complex technologies to generalist judges and juries. Russ has also been actively engaged in pro bono work through the Federal Public Defender's Criminal Justice Act panel in the District of Minnesota, where he has dedicated hundreds of hours to representing indigent criminal clients, and through the Children's Law Center where he represented children in need of protection and in the foster care system. Russ also clerked for the Honorable R.A. Randall of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. He is admitted to practice before the state courts in Minnesota and Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Show less Show less of Russell’s summary

Todd R. Walters is the Chair of the firm’s Patent Office Litigation practice and Co-Chair of the Intellectual Property section. He is a current Vice Chair of IPO U.S. Post-Grant Patent Office Practice Committee. He is the past Chair of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Trial Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) and the past Chair of the USPTO Post Grant and Inter Partes Practice Committee of the American Bar Association-Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL) section. He has previously served as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, and Executive Management team and Co-leader of the IP Section. He has previously served as Chair of the Interference Committee of the AIPLA. He has also served as Vice-chair of the Interference Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) association for approximately ten years.

Steve is Associate General Counsel, IP for Covidien (now Medtronic) in the Surgical Solutions Group. His practice focuses on all aspects of patent law, including prosecution, litigation, licensing and IP due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, and has, in the past, included managing products liability matters as well as general corporate work. Steve is responsible for IP legal work relating to energy-based surgical devices including electrosurgical instruments and accessories as well as the generators that power them; ultrasonic surgical instruments for sealing and dissecting tissue, and radio-frequency tissue ablation instruments and generators. Steve has worked at Covidien for the past seven years, and prior to that was an associate at Greenberg Traurig in their Denver, Colorado office and an associate at Sidley Austin in Dallas, Texas.

Samantha (Sam) C. Pak is Senior Intellectual Property Counsel for Stryker Corporation in Redmond, Washington.  Stryker is one of the world’s leading medical technology companies, whose products include implants used in joint replacement, trauma, and spinal surgeries; surgical equipment and surgical navigation systems; endoscopic and communications systems; neurovascular products; patient handling and emergency medical equipment, and other medical devices used in a variety of specialties.  Sam assists with Stryker’s IP litigation, IP agreements, management of patent and trademark portfolios; due diligence for business development; and provides a range of other IP services.  Before arriving at Stryker in 2018, Sam worked in the legal department at The Boeing Company assisting on various IP services and transactions.  Prior to joining Boeing, Sam also practiced at the Miller Nash law firm in its Seattle, WA office.  There, her practice included assisting with IP litigation; patent and trademark prosecution; transactions; and IP counseling and opinions.  During law school, Sam also prosecuted many patents at an IP boutique firm and completed an internship at Baxter Healthcare immediately after receiving her doctorate degree in biomedical engineering.  Sam is admitted to practice before the USPTO and in Washington.  

Britt Bachtel-Browning is currently Senior Counsel at Avista Corporation. She is a corporate Attorney licensed to practice law in Washington, Oregon, and the District of Columbia (Alaska pending). 12 years of in-house legal experience with a recent focus in the utility industry. She has worked with complex transactions, negotiating contracts and solid intellectual property expertise. 

In her current role as Senior Counsel she provides legal counsel and training for a wide variety of business segments within the company including advice in regulatory/compliance matters, human resources/employment, intellectual property, privacy, mergers and acquisitions, and negotiation of complex business transactions. Ensure that the financial, contractual, regulatory, insurance and business interests of the company are served and appropriate compliance activities are in place. 

She has a recent focus on intellectual property strategy, data governance/privacy issues, policy drafting and new business initiatives such as solar, battery storage, electric vehicle charging and other renewable energy opportunities. Provide key support in building and implementing new and progressive products and services. Britt is part of a cross-functional "innovation work group" team focused capturing employee ideas for new products, services, or processes and guiding the idea through the analysis stages to implementation/development. She also has a key leadership role in creating a "Smart City" collaboration, including entity formation, governance and membership structure in learning all parts of the business and providing legal and business advice as part of a team.

Her experience includes roles as General Counsel of Portland Energy Conservative, IP Counsel at Waggener Edstrom and Assistant Attorney General for the Oregon Department of Justice. She has earned a B.A. in English and Political Science from Weber State University and a J.D. with a focus in IP and International Law from The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law.

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.

Gary leads the Engineering and Tech group at Carpmaels & Ransford. He is a highly respected software, computer and medical technology specialist, who handles a diverse portfolio of cases that cover technologies ranging from electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, signal and image processing, semiconductor technology and measurement technology to medical systems and devices. He is recognised for his ability to tailor creative strategies to the differing requirements of his clients, creating and advising on patenting strategies, carrying out due diligence, and coordinating patent portfolios, throughout the world.

Paul sits within our Engineering and Tech practice group, predominantly working within the healthcare sector, for innovator SMEs, joint ventures and multinational healthcare companies. He particularly enjoys working with companies in the life sciences sector to develop patent portfolios covering engineering and technology innovations. Recently this has involved working for clients in areas such as electrochemical molecular diagnostics, cytometry and bioelectronics. Paul also handles a significant prosecution and opposition workload across a number of different medical devices, including minimally invasive surgical instruments, endoscopic accessories, sutures and injection devices.

Holly Johnston assists clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies to strategically develop and manage their U.S. and foreign intellectual property (IP) portfolios. Holly is admitted to practice in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is a trained engineer experienced in prosecuting patents in numerous disciplines including medical devices and diagnostics, software, electronics, green technologies, manufacturing equipment and consumer products. She handles all aspects of IP procurement and counseling, including developing portfolios of valuable IP assets, providing formal opinions and partnering with IP owners to thoughtfully enforce rights through licensing and dispute resolution.

Mark S. Parris, partner in the Seattle office, is a member of the Intellectual Property Group. Mr. Parris’ practice focuses on complex commercial litigation involving patent and trade secret issues and other related technology disputes. His experience includes litigating and assisting clients with drafting and negotiation of licenses and other contracts relating to the sale or distribution of hardware, software, medical devices, and other intellectual property and products. Mr. Parris has substantial experience in representing clients in litigation and counseling concerning protection and misappropriation of trade secrets, enforcement of non-competition agreements and other competitive issues, as well as general commercial distribution practices and contracts. He was one of two patent litigators in Washington selected as an Amazing Attorney by Washington CEO magazine and was recently recognized as one of the top 30 trial lawyers in Washington. He has been a speaker nationally at various seminars on litigation and trial techniques. Mr. Parris has tried numerous cases - both jury and non-jury trials - has handled several arbitrations and mediations and has served as an expert witness. In addition, Mr. Parris is a member of the firm’s Insurance Recovery Group. He has been named as the leading policy-holder side attorney in Washington State. He has represented several Fortune 500 companies as well as the State of Washington, the Washington Association of Municipal Attorneys and several cities, counties and port authorities in insurance coverage disputes.

Bill Hayden is a Senior Attorney for Microsoft Corporation. He has 15+ years of experience successfully launching enterprise and consumer technology products, closing complex multi-national transactions, and advising on new media services and technology related matters. Bill is counsel for the Office 365/Enterprise Public Sector/Government Cloud offerings and provides global legal support for the privacy, security, and marketing of innovative technology solutions. At Microsoft, he serves as Board Co-Chair for the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, a cross-industry nonprofit.

Laura is an Attorney at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Leveraging her data protection expertise, she supports the Worldwide Commercial Business, including the Cybersecurity Solutions Group. Additionally, Laura focuses on Microsoft’s field readiness efforts. She counsels the Microsoft Learning team and develops training on data protection and compliance matters related to cloud services and emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence.