AGENDA: Wednesday, June 7, 2017

As uncertainty at the PTAB and the threat of invalidity complicate patenting, trade secrets are becoming a new strategic option for IP leaders. At its core, a successful trade secret strategy relies on two equally important factors: people and process.

This panel will explore:

• The business choice between trade secrets and patents
• Developing and maintaining a trade secrets process
  • Key elements in program development
• The human factors and implementation
  • Education
  • Engagement
  • Reinforcement
  • Procedures
• Proactive and preventative measures
• Responses to a breach

Quality patents are the only way forward in your filings and portfolio in today's post AIA landscape. To overcome legal and business challenges companies must be more thorough in core elements like portfolio management, patent prosecution and resource allocation. Meeting these fundamental shifts means counsel must go beyond the standard clearance efforts and engage stakeholders at all levels of the organization to achieve a fully aligned patent strategy.

This panel will explore:

• Portfolio management and alignment to core organization goals
• Developing a more sophisticated patent prosecution strategy
• Portfolio evaluations: Due diligence, market competitiveness and internal analysis
• People, process and resource coordination

IPRs have made patent enforcement a tougher and more complex undertaking. Nevertheless, it remains a crucial tool in safeguarding the essential business assets that are patents. You have to understand what’s in your portfolio, the capabilities of the opposition and most importantly be ready to face an IPR. Successful enforcement requires communication across the organization as well as buy-in from high level decision makers. 

This panel will explore:

• The keys to litigation success: Prepare to succeed or prepare to fail
• Engaging outside counsel & managing costs
• Reevaluating and updating IP enforcement plans
• Running more in-depth due diligence
• Allocating and managing resources 

The landscape has long been favorable to the defendant, but recent decisions are pointing towards the patent owner. As the winds shift are you leveraging your defensive strategy beyond IPRs? If patent owners do bring a case now, it will be a strong one; so the ability to be prepared with your defensive strategy is key. Preparing your resources, team and portfolio means you will be less reactive.

This panel will explore:

• Preparing your defense and aligning with organizational resources
• Scenario planning: What to do when approached?
• Anticipating enforcement strategies
• Considering the consequences: Going beyond just the financials

In this session we discuss the role of technology and machines in our lives especially at work, in IP intelligence and how they can assist in helping us manage and make sense of Big Data. Will humans be taken over by machines? Will machines ever draft patents? What if your outside counsel attorney were a machine? What technology changes can we expect to see in the IP world in the future and how should we prepare for them? We discuss these items and more besides, concluding with Emma’s key predictions for machines and IP for the near and long term future.

• Roundtable 1: 'Problems and Pitfalls in Patent Annuity Pricing'
  Christina Dow, Business Development Manager, Dennemeyer

• Roundtable 2: 'Competitive Intelligence: Efficient Ways to Monitor Your Environment'
  Eric Moran, Team Lead-Sales Engineer, Questel 

• Roundtable 3: 'The Psychodynamics of Patent Prosecution'
  Steve Mendelsohn, Shareholder/President, Mendelsohn Dunleavy PC

• Roundtable 4: 'Cost Effective Litigation through Development of the Trial Story Early in the Litigation'
  Karen Keller, Partner, Shaw Keller LLP
  

Click here for more details. 

Running a successful IPR demands greater sophistication from all stakeholders. Patent owners are adapting to the tougher landscape and petitioners still have great odds of being successful. Judges have also adapted, and seem to have evolved their thinking and process. As both petitioners and patent owners gain more experience and in-house and outside counsel gain more sophistication, opportunity arises to benchmark the evolution of PIP.

This panel will explore:

• Where are PIP heading next? What does the environment look like?
• Hazards to avoid and PIP best practices
• How can you transform your litigation strategy?
• Future trends and crucial lessons learned

Uncertainty & Lack of Clarity:

• Questionable fairness of AIA review procedures
• Inconsistent results between PTAB and courts
       - Uncertainty of validity under the KSR “Common Sense” doctrine
• Growing uncertainty for owners and investors
• Short sellers filing IPRs to manipulate market prices (Kyle Bass and Eric Spangenberg)

Damages and Enforcement:

• Damages: New limitations on calculations
• Revising venue to limit resort to Eastern District of Texas
• Problem of abusive demand letters
• Disadvantaged smaller entities who cannot afford litigation

What’s Coming Next?

• Patent policy of the new administration
• Fate of patent reform bills in 2017
• TC Heartland v Kraft Foods Group LLC - What does the decision mean?
• DTSA and the impact on Trade Secrets 

This session outlines various ethical issues in intellectual property. Participants will explore ethics in leadership, business, ethical frameworks as well as various ethics examples and issues that occur in an intellectual property heavy environment; including but not limited to internal ethics processes, regulations and legal mandates.

This panel will explore:

• Ethical frameworks
• Ethical leadership
• Ethical failures
• Ethics in business
• Ethics in intellectual property
• Takeaways and lessons learned