Speakers

Kasim Alfalahi

Kasim Alfalahi is senior vice president and chief IP officer at Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson.
Mr Alfalahi joined Ericsson in 1995 as a product manager of IP rights. He was particularly involved in patenting R&D related to standards. In so doing, he pioneered the concept of patents as business assets within the company.
In 1999, Mr Alfalahi was appointed director of patent licensing. In this role, which he held until taking up his current position in 2005, he was a key contributor to the transformation of Ericsson’s patenting from a limited and distributed activity into an integral part of the global business. IP rights and licensing income now attracts US$1 billion net annual revenue. Ericsson’s patent portfolio comprises more than 30,000 issued patents.
Mr Alfalahi received his MSc in engineering and management from the Linköping Institute of Technology, Sweden. He speaks Arabic, English, Spanish and Swedish.

Robert Aronoff

Robert Aronoff is managing partner at Pluritas, a leading IP strategy and transactions firm headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Mr Aronoff draws on over 25 years serving Fortune 500 companies, business strategy and technology consulting firms and leading small-cap public companies. He has worked as an executive or management consultant at Sun Microsystems (now part of Oracle), Eastman Kodak, Microsoft, Coopers & Lybrand and Peat Marwick.
Mr Aronoff also served as founding executive director of the Digital Imaging Group, an industry consortium that had the financial and technical backing of Kodak, Fuji, Canon, Intel, HP, IBM, Adobe, Agfa and Microsoft.
In several of his previous positions, he was responsible for the development of product and technology strategy and related standards, as well as patent in-licensing and out-licensing. He provides his clients with deep insight into what facilitates and impedes IP asset values, in addition to strong negotiating skills and contacts.

Geoffrey Barker

Geoffrey Barker is the COO and co-founder of RPX Corporation. Prior to co-founding RPX, Mr Barker was vice president, licensing at Intellectual Ventures (IV), where he and John Amster - RPX CEO and fellow co-founder - shared responsibility for the development and licensing strategy of IV’s software portfolio.
Previously, Mr Barker was founder, chairman and CEO of Vigilos, Inc, which developed a platform for controlling and managing the physical security systems of large enterprises. Before founding Vigilos, Mr Barker was co-founder and co-CEO of The Cobalt Group, and held positions in trading, research and investment banking with Kidder, Peabody & Company, Salomon Brothers Inc and Piper Jaffray Incorporated.
In June 2012 Mr Barker was a recipient of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Northern California. Mr Barker holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in economics from Tufts University.

Keith Bergelt

Keith Bergelt is the CEO of Open Invention Network (OIN), the collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux. OIN enables and defends Linux, through both its royalty-free patent licensing programme and efforts such as Linux Defenders (www.linuxdefenders.org).
Before joining OIN, Mr Bergelt served as CEO of two hedge funds formed to unlock the considerable asset value of intellectual property in middle-market companies. He raised over US$300 million at these firms while financing IP-centric portfolio companies of leading financial sponsors.
Mr Bergelt previously served as a senior adviser to the technology investment division at Texas Pacific Group. He also headed business development, intellectual property and licensing for Cambridge Display Technology. Additionally, he established and served as general manager of the strategic intellectual asset management business unit and director of technology strategy at Motorola. He is a frequent speaker on corporate strategy, finance and IP management.

Ira Blumberg

Ira Blumberg is vice president of intellectual property at Lenovo. His responsibilities include overseeing the licensing and management of Lenovo’s patent portfolio.
Before joining Lenovo, Mr Blumberg was a licensing executive at Intellectual Ventures, focused primarily on Japan. From 2004 to 2010 he was vice president of licensing at Rambus Inc, where he negotiated, drafted and closed patent licensing deals valued in excess of US$1.5 billion. Before joining Rambus, Mr Blumberg was director of licensing at Intel, where he negotiated, drafted and closed the patent licence agreement between Intel and LG Electronics that became the basis of the US Supreme Court case Quanta Computer, Inc v LG Electronics, Inc. He also worked in private practice at Hughes Hubbard and Reed and at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.
Mr Blumberg has a JD from the University of Virginia and a BS and MS from the University of Pennsylvania, in applied science and computer science, respectively.

Russell Boltwood

Russell Boltwood is responsible for all operational and strategic aspects of Transpacific IP’s legal function, including oversight of the company’s internal and external legal professionals, management of general corporate and business legal matters, IP portfolio design, acquisition, licensing and monetisation strategies.
Before joining Transpacific IP, Mr Boltwood was of counsel for San Francisco-based law firm Dillingham & Murphy, LLP, where he advised large, mid-sized and emerging companies in regard to corporate, venture capital, transactional, intellectual property and business development matters, with an emphasis on China, Brazil and other emerging economies.
A member of the State Bar of California, Mr Boltwood is recognised as a Certified Licensing Executive by the Licensing Executives Society, and is the author of several published articles regarding intellectual property, corporate governance and competitive intelligence matters. He also holds a BA in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jim Brelsford

Jim Brelsford is the senior vice president for IP licensing at SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in Flash memory system solutions with 2011 revenues of US$5.6 billion. SanDisk’s products include solid state drives for consumers and in the enterprise market, embedded memory in mobile phones and ultrabooks, and camera and mobile phone memory cards.
SanDisk has been licensing its intellectual property for more than 10 years and generated more than US$2 billion over the past five years in licensing and royalty revenues.
Mr Brelsford also serves as the chief legal officer of SanDisk and was named the best general counsel in Silicon Valley in 2010 by the San Francisco Business Times and the San Jose Business Journal.

Crystal J Chen

Crystal Chen is a partner at Tsai, Lee & Chen based in Taipei, Taiwan. She is admitted to practise in both mainland China and New York State in the United States.
Ms Chen started her IP practice in 1996. She counsels companies on IP prosecution, enforcement and cross-border dispute resolution. She has extensive experience in managing international trademark portfolios and advising on strategies for litigation and settlement negotiation in patent and trademark disputes. She is a prolific writer and speaker, and constantly provides clients with updates on IP laws and practices relating to Taiwan and China.
Ms Chen has an LLB from Taiwan and an LLM in intellectual property from the University of New Hampshire School of Law, formerly Franklin Pierce Law Centre. She serves as a committee member of the American IP Law Association and the IP Owners Association.

Campbell Chiang

Campbell Chiang is patent counsel for Qualcomm, Inc, where his current role includes supporting the Qualcomm patent department’s efforts in China.
Before joining Qualcomm in 2010, Mr Chiang was in private practice with the law firms of Perkins Coie, LLP in Menlo Park, California and Kenyon & Kenyon LLP in New York.
Mr Chiang holds a JD from Duke University School of Law (2004) and a BS in computer science and engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (2001). He is admitted to practise in New York and California, and before the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Kenneth Choy

Kenneth Choy is a Hong Kong-based partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer. His practice focuses on helping clients to develop, protect and leverage intangible assets through portfolio building, licensing, strategic alliances, capital raising and mergers and acquisitions. He has helped companies from start-ups to multinationals to grow their intangible asset portfolio for more than 25 years.
Mr Choy graduated from San Francisco State University and obtained his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law. He is admitted as a Hong Kong solicitor and an attorney in New York and California. He has been in private practice in the United States and Hong Kong. He was a co-founder of a technology company and has served as general counsel in the United States and Asia.

Bill Coughlin

Bill Coughlin started out as an electrical engineer working in a research laboratory developing batteries for electric vehicles. He then joined Harness, Dickey & Pierce while attending law school at night.
After many years as a partner at Harness, Dickey & Pierce, Mr Coughlin joined Chrysler as its chief trademark counsel. He became chief patent counsel a year later, and worked for a while in Stuttgart for DaimlerChrysler as its IP legal chief.
Today, Mr Coughlin is president and CEO of Ford Global Technologies. As such, he is responsible for all IP matters worldwide for Ford Motor Company and its subsidiaries. He is also a member of the board of directors for the IP Owners Association and an adjunct professor at Thomas M Cooley Law School on its LLM programme for intellectual property.

Phil Davies

Phil Davies is a European patent attorney and a partner at Haseltine Lake, with broad experience across a wide range of physics and communication-based technologies. He works with clients ranging from FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies to innovative small and medium-sized entities, providing effective patent prosecution and strategic IP advice.
Mr Davies joined Haseltine Lake following 14 years in an in-house attorney role at QinetiQ, an organisation formed from several UK government research labs, where he was responsible for delivering IP strategy for several business groups.
His experience extends from working with spin-out companies to managing large IP portfolios. As well as patent filing and prosecution, Mr Davies has worked on devising IP strategies, invention farming, patent landscaping, IP due diligence and IP exploitation agreements. He is a member of Haseltine Lake’s China group, focusing on IP issues relating to China.

Paul Fehlner

Paul Fehlner is head of intellectual property at Novartis Pharma. The IP team is responsible for obtaining and enforcing IP rights for Pharma's products. The team act as “IP architects”, working to build a holistic IP portfolio. This includes patents, trademarks, regulatory exclusivities and other IP rights.
Mr Fehlner joined Novartis in 2008 from law firm Baker Botts, where he specialised in IP counselling and strategic planning in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. Mr Fehlner has over 22 years’ experience in IP law, including seven years as a partner at Darby & Darby, as well as earlier work as biotechnology counsel for Rhone-Poulence Rorer and as an associate for boutique IP firm Klauber & Jackson. He started his career as a law clerk in the biotech and pharmaceutical group at Pennie & Edmonds.
Mr Fehlner has a BS in chemistry from Haverford College, a PhD in immunology and biochemistry from the Rockefeller University and a JD from Fordham University School of Law.

John Flock

John Flock, a partner at Kenyon & Kenyon LLP and co-chair of the firm’s electrical/mechanical/computer practice, is a high-stakes patent litigator whose experience has generated professional achievement awards, accolades from Legal 500 and Benchmark and repeated American Law Journal Top Jury Verdict recognition.
Mr Flock combines more than 20 years’ patent litigation experience with nine years of service as a former New York City assistant district attorney to litigate intense legal battles arising in the most popular forums for patent litigation, including the International Trade Commission (ITC) and district courts.
Mr Flock offers his clients the best in patent litigation by drawing on his technical education, trial techniques and computer technology expertise obtained from experience designing and implementing computer systems. He recently acted as lead outside counsel for Sony Corporation against LG Electronics in five high-profile US litigations (including two ITC cases), and advises on Sony’s litigation strategy in five Asian and European countries.

Michael Friedman

Michael Friedman is a managing director at OceanTomo, the intellectual capital merchant bank® firm. Mr Friedman manages the investments practice for the firm, which includes investment banking, asset management and investment research.
In addition, Mr Friedman oversees OceanTomo’s business collaborations in China, specifically the publication of the US-China 200 IP™ Index and the development of the IP Services Center, in collaboration with a major Chinese stock exchange. The US-China 200 IP Index is the world’s first index based on the value of both US and Chinese intellectual property and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The IP Services Center will provide tech transfer facilitation services, including IP valuation, advisory and transaction execution.
Mr Friedman is a member of the board of directors of the Intellectual Property Exchange International, the world’s first IP-focused financial exchange, and a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School.

Horacio Gutierrez

Horacio Gutiérrez is corporate vice president and the deputy general counsel in charge of Microsoft’s worldwide IP group. In this capacity, Mr Gutiérrez is responsible for the company's worldwide IP portfolio - including all of its patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets - and for the development and execution of the company’s overall IP strategy.
Mr Gutiérrez was previously based in Paris, France, where he was Microsoft's associate general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, overseeing all legal, regulatory and government affairs matters for the region.
Mr Gutiérrez is trained and has practised law in both civil law and common law jurisdictions. He holds an LLM from Harvard Law School, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar, a JD summa cum laude from the University of Miami, and undergraduate and graduate law degrees from Universidad Católica in Caracas, Venezuela.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey was CEO of BTG plc from 1985 to 2004 and chairman of the IP Institute from 1999 to 2011. He received his degree in mechanical sciences from Cambridge University and worked in industry before undertaking an MBA at Harvard Business School, after which he worked for the World Bank in Asia and Africa.
His current positions include co-director and course professor at Tsinghua Business School (Beijing) IP Centre; adjunct professor at Imperial College Business School, London; adviser to the Northern Technology Exchange Market, Tianjin, China; and a fellow of the University of Nottingham. He is a founding board member of the International IP Strategists Association and has served on many other international boards and advisory organisations, including as chairman of the UK government’s IP Advisory Committee (2001-2005).
He is currently involved with the development of intellectual property in China and is pressing for intellectual property to be taught as part of strategy in business school programmes globally.

Peter D Holden

Peter Holden is senior vice president of investments and acquisitions for IPValue Management, Inc - a Goldman Sachs/General Atlantic-backed patent licensing company. He was previously founder and head of the IP Investment Group at Coller Capital Ltd, a private equity firm with over US$13.5 billion under management.
Mr Holden is widely recognised as a pioneer in leveraging intellectual property as a financial asset class, and in 2011 was recognised by Intellectual Asset Management magazine as one of the global top 50 most influential people in intellectual property. His experience has included senior positions at Panasonic in Japan, University Patents in Westport, Connecticut and Invisible Hand LLC in New York (a IP venture fund that he founded and led).
He holds degrees from the United Kingdom and Japan, and is a senior fellow at Wharton. He has also advised the UK, Korean and US governments on technology transfer and sovereign IP fund formation.

Xiaowei Hu

Before joining Isis, Xiaowei Hu worked for the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. With a background in chemistry and business management, Mr Hu has held roles in technology transfer, business development and international cooperation for four years.
He has managed a portfolio of industrial and academic partners, including Huawei, Tencent, Skyworthy, 999, Midea, ADSC, I2R and UBC. He qualified with master’s degrees in educational research and international business economics from KU Leuven, and is engaged in research in technology transfer and innovative entrepreneurship.

Yuliang Huang

Yuliang Huang is a professional manager with over 15 years of management experience in the healthcare (biopharmaceutical) industry across the Pacific Rim. He has a track record in starting up businesses and managing pharmaceutical companies in the United States, Hong Kong and China, mainly in the fields of new product development and registration, marketing, sales and business development.
Dr Huang is the founder and CEO of DHY and the founder and CEO of Generon (Shanghai) Corporation, a subsidary of DHY.

Zarif Imam

Zarif Imam joined ICEBERG Capital Partners in 2011 as head of client relations. His primary role is business development and managing the company’s key client relationships with buyers and sellers.
Before joining ICEBERG, Mr Imam spent almost six years at ZTE Corporation as global head of financing with responsibility for raising capital for ZTE and its clients in the customer financing team.
From 1987 until 2006, Mr Imam worked for a number of banks in London, specialising in the telecommunications, media and technology sector. During this time he worked with the main telecommunications and technology companies globally, advising them on capital raising.

Shinji Ina

Shinji Ina is the general manager of the IP alliance and licensing department of Sony Corporation. He has decades of experience in the IP field and is currently responsible for IP strategy for electronics businesses across the entire Sony group of companies, including audiovisual, personal computing, gaming and mobile products.
Mr Ina not only has broad and extensive experience in managing bilateral transactional negotiations and patent litigations for Sony, but has also been active in leading an industry-wide effort to create new and pre-emptive structures for effectively resolving an ever-growing diverse and complex range of IP issues.

Tom Irving

Tom Irving has 36 years of experience in IP law in Finnegan’s Washington DC and Belgian offices. His practice includes due diligence, patent prosecution, reissue, re-examination, interferences and counselling (including pre-litigation), Orange Book listings of patents covering drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), infringement, enforceability, validity analysis in the chemical/pharmaceutical fields and litigation.
Mr Irving also serves as an expert witness in patent litigation and has been involved in several US district court litigations. He has also been involved in public health and safety issues related to the preparation of citizen petitions before the FDA.
Mr Irving serves as principal teacher of the Patent Resources Group (PRG) Chemical Patent Practice course. He also originated PRG’s Orange Book and Due Diligence courses. In addition to lecturing at law schools in the United States and China, Mr Irving has lectured at the Patent Office of the State IP Office of the People’s Republic of China.

Pat Kennedy

Pat Kennedy is the founder and chairman of US-based Cellport Systems. Since Cellport's inception in 1993, the company has focused on advanced connectivity designs and secured early essential patents in the connected vehicle market. Leading vehicle suppliers such as Motorola, Continental and Harman head the list.
Mr Kennedy holds 14 patents and has led the securing of dozens of licences and partnerships catalysed by Cellport's telematics patents. In October 2009 Mr Kennedy’s first book, IdeaJacked, was published.
Mr Kennedy has a BA in economics from the University of Buffalo and sits on several public and private boards.

Johnson Kong

Johnson Kong is the executive vice president and head of Asia-Pacific at IP.com. He has experience in intellectual property, international business and technologies.
Mr Kong is a recognised expert in the creation and implementation of IP strategies. He has assisted public and private multinational companies in creating and implementing robust IP strategies to support business goals, such as instituting best practices, overcoming market entry barriers, enhancing product and service margins, creating distribution networks, leveraging partner relationships, increasing corporate valuations and generating licensing revenue.
Mr Kong has co-chaired and been a guest speaker at numerous official IP events. He has worked with the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, the IP Office of Singapore, the Upstate Alliance for Innovation, the State IP Office, the Korean IP Institute, the Taiwan IP Office, the Industrial Technology and Research Institute, Salzburg Global Seminar, the American IP Law Association, BusinessWeek and many others.

Al Kwok

Al Kwok is the principal IP adviser for the STARS Foundation, president of the Pearl River Delta Chapter of the Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Association, founder of China International IP Services Ltd, founder of the Guangdong-Hong Kong International Science Park Alliance Ltd and governor and founding member of the Savantas Policy Institute.
Mr Kwok has over 30 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry and has led major paradigm shifts in the semiconductor business. Mr Kwok played a critical role in laying the foundation for the IT Eva.
Since his return to Hong Kong in 2002, Mr Kwok has promoted application and service platform developments, as well as IP and innovation management in China. Mr Kwok was the co-editor of the first comprehensive international IP management training manual to be published in Chinese in China.
He has a BSES and an MSEE from the University of Texas, Austin.

Michael J Lasinski

Michael Lasinski is a founder and managing director of 284 Partners, LLC, a professional services firm focused on litigation consulting, valuation analysis and client strategy. He is a recognised leader in the field of IP valuation and has testified in court on such matters. He advised the US unsecured creditors committee of Nortel through its record patent sale to the Rockstar Consortium for US$4.5 billion.
Mr Lasinski is also the immediate past president of the Licensing Executives Society (USA and Canada) (LES). He was named one of the world’s leading IP strategists in the IAM Strategy 300. He is a division chair for the IP Section of the American Bar Association and oversees the Committee on Economics. He is the former chair of the Valuation and Taxation Committee for LES and the former vice chair of the IP Owners’ Valuation and Taxation Committee.
Mr Lasinski is a certified public accountant.

Fred Logue

Fred Logue is a founder and director of New Morning Intellectual Property Limited, a specialised consulting and outsourcing firm that helps companies to build and maintain IP property operations in Ireland.
During his career in the technology and IP business, Dr Logue has held a variety of engineering and management roles with some of the world’s largest technology companies in Europe, the United States and Japan. He was a senior manager with Lucent Technology’s IP business, where he helped to establish and operate its Irish office.
Dr Logue holds a BSc in physics and maths from University College Dublin and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. Dr Logue is also a lawyer admitted to practise as a solicitor in both Ireland and England and Wales. He is listed in the IAM Strategy 300 as one of the world’s leading IP strategists and is a member of the International IP Strategists Association and the Institute of Physics.

Terry Ludlow

Terry Ludlow is founder, chairman and CEO of Chipworks. He is a recognised pioneer in semiconductor reverse engineering and was among the first to realise its value for IP groups.
Mr Ludlow founded Chipworks in 1992 to offer semiconductor and microelectronics system reverse engineering services and patent infringement analysis to companies involved in licensing negotiations and litigations. As CEO, he continues to provide the strategy, vision and driving force that have earned Chipworks its position as the premier source of knowledge of what is inside technology.

Daniel P McCurdy

Daniel McCurdy is CEO of Allied Security Trust, responsible for management of the trust, patent acquisitions and divestitures, and membership expansion. He remains chairman of PatentFreedom, the online global authority on non-practising entities.
From 2001 to 2008 Mr McCurdy was founding CEO of ThinkFire, an IP advisory firm to many of the world’s leading technology companies and private equity firms. Before that, from 2000 to 2001 he was president of Lucent Technologies’ IP business, managing 300 employees and US$500 million in annual revenues.
Prior to Lucent, he served as founding vice president of IBM’s life sciences business unit and vice president of corporate development for CIENA Corporation, where he was responsible for mergers and acquisitions. From 1982 to 1997 Mr McCurdy held a variety of business and IP management roles in IBM.
Mr McCurdy received his BA summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina.

Lisa McFall

Lisa McFall is a co-founder and managing director of Ovidian Group, LLC. She has wide expertise in all facets of strategic IP risk management, along with patent acquisition, monetisation and enforcement.
Before joining Ovidian, Ms McFall served as vice president and associate general counsel at Yahoo! She managed Yahoo!'s extensive docket of IP litigation matters, as well as a variety of operational functions and complex transactional matters.
Prior to 2004, Ms McFall spent 10 years litigating patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret cases at Brown & Bain and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Ms McFall received her JD with honours from the University of Wisconsin School of Law, where she was managing editor of the Law Review and president of the Moot Court Board. Ms McFall received her BA in international relations from Stanford University, where she focused on US-Soviet civil/military relations.

Mike McLean

Mike McLean is vice president IP rights and professional services at UBM TechInsights and has held the same role at Semiconductor Insights since March 2008. He previously held a series of progressively senior positions with the company. Since joining the company in 1996, he has held technical and management posts, including vice president IPinsights, director of intellectual property, patent analyst, IP account manager and IP operations manager.
Mr McLean led the creation of the patent development business unit within Semiconductor Insights. He has also worked extensively with the technology practices of major law firms, the in-house corporate counsel teams of key technology companies and external licensing agencies.
Mr McLean holds a bachelor of science in engineering with first-class honours from Queens University and is a licensed member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario. In recognition of his strong technical and business acumen, Mr McLean has served as a witness in several IP suits on behalf of UBM TechInsights’ clients.

Paul Melin

Paul Melin is chief IP officer at Nokia, with global responsibility for matters including patent licensing, portfolio development and regulatory IP issues, as well as IP acquisitions, investments and divestments. He has led Nokia’s IP organisation since July 2010, before which he led Nokia’s patent licensing and IP strategy and business development activities.
Before joining Nokia in 2004, Mr Melin spent seven years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, advising clients primarily in the technology and telecommunications sectors on issues of strategy, organisation and operations. Mr Melin has a master's degree in industrial management and engineering from Helsinki University of Technology.

Don Merino

Don Merino is senior vice president and general manager for Asia licensing sales at Intellectual Ventures, where he leads the company’s licensing efforts in Asia. Intellectual Ventures, an investment fund with US$5 billion under management, invents, acquires and licenses patented inventions.
Dr Merino joined Intellectual Ventures in 2004 and ran the acquisitions team, which reviewed more than 100,000 invention assets and was involved in more than 1,500 patent transactions.
Before joining Intellectual Ventures, Dr Merino spent four years at Intel Corporation, where he was director of strategic business development and managed the Intel licensing programme. Previously, Dr Merino was director of licensing for General Instrument, where he participated in the development of the MPEG Licensing Authority.
On graduating from the US Naval Academy, Dr Merino served as an officer in the US Navy. Dr Merino received his MEME and PhD from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Luke Minford

Luke Minford is an executive based in Rouse's London office. He has spent 14 years working in China, with the last six as head of the firm’s China practice, and has a wide range of experience dealing with IP protection and enforcement in China.
Mr Minford’s experience includes advising on IP strategy, management, commercialisation, protection and enforcement and IP portfolio management for a number of multinational brand owners. He has also been involved in setting up and supervising regional protection programmes; establishing and managing an internal IP department on behalf of one of China's biggest consumer goods companies; establishing and managing coalitions of brand owners; advising on and assisting in the setting up of comprehensive licensing programmes; and advising on a number of IP and non-IP related commercial issues in relation to foreign direct and indirect investment in China.
Mr Minford holds a BA in English and an LLB from Otago, New Zealand. Mr Minford speaks Chinese (Mandarin).

Daniel Papst

Daniel Papst graduated in 2000 from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany in electrical engineering and information technology, with a focus on electric drives and power electronics, earning a Dipl-Ing degree. As an intern at the Chicago IP boutique Welsh & Katz Ltd, he gained patent law experience in the United States.
Mr Papst started out at an IP law firm in Munich, Germany. A licensed German patent attorney since 2005, he joined Papst Licensing in the same year. In 2009 Mr Papst became one of the managing directors of Papst Licensing. He is a member of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the Association of IP Experts, the Licensing Executives Society International, the International IP Strategists Association and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Papst Licensing GmbH & Co KG was established in 1992 by its founder Georg Papst, Mr Papst’s late father, and is owned by him and his two brothers. Papst Licensing enables small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in the world patent monetisation and licensing market.

Philip Parker

Philip Parker is the founder and CEO of PJ Parker & Co. The company is based in Tokyo, Japan, and is the largest patent broker of patents in Japan. Its clients include two-thirds of the top 20 Japanese high-tech firms. The firm concludes patent transactions between Japan, other Asian countries, and North America.
Mr Parker was born in Australia and holds a PhD in systems engineering from the Australian National University. He studied in Japan at both Osaka University of Foreign Studies and Kyoto University, and has lived in Japan for the past 16 years. He speaks Japanese fluently.
In his earlier career, he worked as a management consultant for Arthur D Little and AT Kearney. He also founded the company systemsGo, a pan-Asian systems integrator.

Ruud Peters

Ruud Peters, a national of the Netherlands, has been CEO of Philips IP&S since 1999 (now called chief IP officer), and is responsible for managing Philips' worldwide IP portfolio creation and value extraction activities. He is also responsible for technical and formal standardisation activities in the fields of consumer lifestyle, healthcare, lighting and technology.
He joined Philips IP&S in 1977, and became director responsible for licensing in 1990. He participated in standards bodies such as the International Organisation for Standardisation and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, where he was active in the formulation of IP policies. Currently, Philips IP&S has around 400 people working in 11 countries around the world.
Mr Peters is also a board member of three technology, IP licensing and trading companies. He has a background in physics. He was inducted into the IP Hall of Fame in 2010.

Guy Proulx

Originally founded in 2004, Transpacific IP is Asia’s leading IP firm managing a large patent portfolio across a broad range of technologies. It is growing in strength through ongoing acquisitions and patent filings.
Mr Proulx is on the board of directors at the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, a supervisor of the master's postgraduate programme at Peking University Intellectual Property School, chairman of the International IP Institute at Sichuan University, director at the China National Institute for Digital Copyright Research Centre and vice chairman of the Licensing Executives Society International.
Mr Proulx has worked with organisations on strategic IP issues, including patent portfolio development strategy, maximising licensing opportunities and the acquisition of patents. He has provided management assessment expertise and due diligence assistance for private equity investors and acquisition groups.
He has been recognised as one of the world’s leading IP strategists by IAM Strategy 300 for 2012.

Andrew Ramer

Andrew Ramer is the CEO of Marqera, a global IP trading and advisory firm. Marqera delivers a range of products and services, including patent commercialisation, product commercialisation and incubation, and advisory services.
Mr Ramer has developed a worldwide reputation in the IP marketplace, having built and led the world’s first eight global live multi-lot IP auctions from inception, and has completed hundreds of IP transactions.
Mr Ramer is a frequent lecturer on IP issues and has been quoted by some of the leading international media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Red Herring, Business Week, Barron's, Bloomberg, Reuters and The New York Times. Mr Ramer was selected as one of the world’s 250 leading IP strategists by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine for the years 2009 to 2011. In 2011, Mr Ramer was also selected by IAM as one of the top 50 people to have shaped the global IP market.

Andrew Sant

Andrew Sant is chief IP officer for Crown Packaging Technology, Inc – part of Crown Holdings’ group of companies, the world’s largest manufacturer of metal packaging containers. He has responsibility for all IP matters across the group, in multiple jurisdictions. Crown has a track record of bringing leading packaging innovations to market, requiring careful alignment of business and IP strategies. Mr Sant is based at the group’s technical centre in Wantage in the United Kingdom.
Mr Sant discovered intellectual property during his time as a technology consultant working for The Technology Partnership plc (TTP), near Cambridge. At TTP he created and ran a successful product development business supported by an underpinning IP strategy – applying and exploiting the ‘golden eggs’ business model with a portfolio of clients and licence agreements.
Mr Sant read physics at Imperial College, London and completed his postgraduate studies with a PhD in applied optics, specialising in laser physics and light-scattering phenomena.

J Bruce Schelkopf

J Bruce Schelkopf is vice president, deputy general counsel and chief IP counsel for Ingersoll Rand. He is responsible for leading, developing and managing all aspects of the company’s global IP operation.
Mr Schelkopf has held numerous executive leadership roles in legal, business and technology functions at IBM, GE, Cummins and Lockheed. He is a graduate of various engineering, business and law programmes, including at Stanford University, Rutgers, Pennsylvania State University and GE’s Crotonville Leadership Programme.
Mr Schelkopf is also an adjunct professor of law, routinely speaks on successfully executing global IP strategies for competitive advantage and is a practising inventor with patents pending and issued. He has received numerous industry awards, including Best Global IP Director at the International General Counsel Awards.

Pallavi Shah

Pallavi Shah is an IP licensing and patent sales executive at Hewlett-Packard. She is responsible for the monetisation of innovations through IP sales, licensing, technology transfer and channel/partner cultivation. Previously an IP strategist, she counselled senior business, technology and legal executives on cross-licensing, in-licensing, out-licensing, joint development and patent pools. Ms Shah has successfully incubated and launched new businesses and technologies in the publishing, mobile, big data and digital media sectors, among others.
Before joining Hewlett-Packard, Ms Shah was senior market development manager for knowledge management and digital media at Sun Microsystems. She built over 120 partnerships and established a US$250 million new revenue pipeline through multiple joint ventures, equity investments and technology licensing.
She has chaired many standards bodies, including the International Organisation for Standardisation’s MPEG4-Java body. Previously, Ms Shah worked at Stanford Research Institute, where she pioneered the world’s first interactive high-definition television.
Ms Shah holds multiple patents in digital media, mobile technology and cloud computing.

Roger Shang

Roger Shang is chief patent and technology counsel at Alipay and Alibaba Group, which owns and controls Alibaba.com, Taobao, Alibaba Cloud Computing and Yahoo! China. He is responsible for prosecuting and managing the global patent portfolio of all Alibaba Group and Alipay companies.
He is also responsible for patent litigation, IP licensing, open source and other technology-focused legal matters. Before joining Alibaba, Mr Shang practised IP law at the law firms Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP and Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP. He received his JD from New York University School of Law.

Song Shang

Song Shang is the president of Shenzhen ZhongQing Digital Equipment Co, Ltd (ZDEC). He has been dedicated to light-emitting diode (LED) product innovation, technology development and business exploration for Chinese LED enterprises abroad for many years.
In 1996, under his leadership, ZDEC developed the first global pulse-width modulation control chip, which was applied in LED displays. ZDEC owns hundreds of IP rights, which have been comprehensively applied in LED screen and light projects, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2009 China National Celebration and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.
ZDEC is one of the most influential members of the Shenzhen LED Patent Alliance.

Jaime Siegel

Jaime Siegel is the vice president and senior IP counsel for Sony Corporation of America. His responsibilities include the worldwide licensing of technology in and out of Sony, the enforcement of Sony's patent rights, the defence of Sony against third-party IP claims and strategic IP acquisitions.
Mr Siegel is an expert in patent pools and previously served as chairman of the board of MPEG LA. He has been a member of the Audio Video Standard (AVS) ad hoc IP Rights Experts Group in China and Sony’s representative on the AVS Patent Pool Administration Executive Committee.
Before joining Sony over 12 years ago, Mr Siegel was an IP litigation associate at the law firms of Kenyon & Kenyon and Fish & Neave. He holds a degree in law and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. Mr Siegel is also a national trustee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Jon Taub

Jon Taub joined Acacia Research Group in July 2007 as vice president. He was appointed senior vice president in October 2010 and executive vice president in October 2011. Before joining Acacia, he was director of strategic alliances for Microsoft's mobile and embedded devices division and business development manager for Microsoft's security business unit.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr Taub was director of business development at Nortel Networks. He joined Nortel following the company's US$450 million acquisition of software infrastructure developer Epicon, Inc, where he headed business development.
He was previously an IP and corporate law associate with Covington & Burling in Washington DC and an analyst at Santander Investment in Madrid. Mr Taub holds a BS from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Laure van Oudheusden

Laure van Oudheusden is head of Philips IP&S China. From 2009 until August 2012 she was the general manager of the Philips Group Innovation business group within Philips IP&S. She was also a member of the executive management team for the organisation, which comprises 450 IP professionals globally.
Before taking up this role, Ms van Oudheusden was general manager of the Philips IP&S office in France from 2006 until 2009. She started her career at Philips IP&S in 1996 as an IP counsel.
Ms van Oudheusden is qualified before the French Patent and Trademark Office as well as before the European Patent Office. She obtained a master's from the Institut Supérieur d'Electronique de Paris with a major in telecommunications.

Haibo Wang

Haibo Wang is the chief IP officer at ZTE. He graduated from Renmin University of China.
Mr Wang is a member of various industry organisations – he sits on the committee of the China IP Law Research Society and is a member of the IP strategy expert database at the State IP Office, vice chairman of the board of the Guangzhou IP Arbitration Court, vice executive president of the Shenzhen Patent Association, a member of the Shenzhen Judicial Expertise Expert Committee and the mediation expert for the South China branch of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. He is also a visiting professor at a number of universities.
Mr Wang has been named in China's National IP Rights Experts Pool as one of China's Most Influential IP Rights Persons for 2011 and as one of the Global Telecommunications Business 40 Executives Under 40 Young Leaders.
Mr Wang has extensive experience in corporate IP strategy and management, including global IP mapping, trademarks, copyrights and domain names, negotiation, licensing and investment.

Hugo Wang

Hugo Wang is the director of patents and assistant general manager of the R&D department at Tencent.
Mr Wang holds a number of positions and responsibilities in various government and industry organisations, such as deputy IP researcher and member of the IP expert database at the State Intellectual Property Office. He sits on the IP committee of experts of the Intellectual Property Office of Shenzhen municipality and is a member of the senior judging committee of intellectual property at a senior and intermediate level for the professional technical qualifying committee of Shenzhen municipality.
He is involved in various roles in associations across China, holding the positions of vice president of the Patent Protection Association of China, executive vice president of the Shenzhen Patent Association and founder and rotating chairman of the Chinese Enterprise Intellectual Property Salon.
Mr Wang is also a contract research fellow at Shenzhen University’s IP Research Centre and a lecturer at Xinhua College at Sun Yat-Sen University.

Victoria Wang

Victoria Wang is founder and CEO of Victoria Wang Consulting Group, an IP service group that specialises in China-related international business and economy. She is also a counsel member of the IP Institute (UK) and former China research director at the institute.

Dr Wang previously worked at Rouse, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a Beijing law school. She is qualified as an attorney at law in New York State and as a lawyer in China. She obtained her PhD in law from the China University of Politics and Law, as well as master’s degrees in law from New York University Law School and Warwick University Law School.

Joff Wild

Joff Wild has been the editor of Intellectual Asset Management since it was established in 2004. As a journalist, he has specialised in covering intellectual property since the early 1990s. Prior to IAM, Mr Wild was editor of Managing Intellectual Property, Patent World and Copyright World, and was assistant editor of Trademark World. He has written on IP-related subjects for titles such as The Times, The Financial Times, Euromoney magazine, the American Lawyer and Latin Finance, and has appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4 to talk about intellectual property. He is also editor in chief of the IP Media Group and is responsible for the content of the IP Business Congress.

Kai Wu

Kai Wu is executive vice president and general manager of the R&D unit at Goldwind Science & Technology. Mr Wu holds a master’s degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He previously worked at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology and SKF (China) in various roles, including R&D, applied technology and marketing.
Mr Wu joined Goldwind Science & Technology in 2008. He held a number of positions in the company before taking on his current role, including assistant general manager and then general manager of the supply chain management centre, and assistant general manager of Beijing Goldwind Science & Creation Windpower Equipment, a subsidiary of Goldwind Science & Technology. Mr Wu has held his current post since January 2011.

Xiangyang Xu

Xiangyang Xu, MBA, is the vice president of China Technology Exchange (CTEX) and the president of the China Beijing Stock Register and Custody Centre.
Mr Xu is the chief designer, builder and manager of CTEX’s professional IP management platform, offering a one-stop IP service. Mr Xu also works as the group leader of the patent evaluation and analysis system and operation research project hosted by the State IP Office of China.
Mr Xu has more than 20 years’ experience working in IP licensing, IP trading, IP investment and consulting. Before joining CTEX, Mr Xu worked at the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, as well as at Hewlett-Packard and the Lenovo Group, where he gained rich experience in enterprise management, IP trading and venture capital investment.

Yang Xu

Yang Xu is chief patent counsel at Simcere Pharmaceutical Group. He previously worked at Boston Biomedical Inc, ArQule, Inc and Merck & Co, Inc. Mr Xu’s legal expertise encompasses patent strategies, patent prosecution, IP due diligence and IP litigation.
Mr Xu received his JD from the University of Texas Law School, his PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Chicago and his BS from Beijing University. Mr Xu is registered to practise before the US Patent and Trademark Office and admitted to practise in Massachusetts.

Perry Wu Yang

Perry Wu Yang is the president of Liu, Shen & Associates and is qualified as a patent attorney and an attorney at law in China. He started his professional career in 1982 and has been working in the IP field for 30 years. From 1982 to 1992 Mr Yang worked for the CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office, before joining Liu, Shen & Associates as a founding partner in 1993.
Mr Yang graduated from Zhejiang University (BS 1982), majoring in mechanical engineering, and received professional training at IP law firms in Germany and the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1985. His areas of special interests and experience include patent filing, prosecution and invalidation proceedings in the field of mechanical engineering.
Mr Yang is the president of the All-China Patent Agents Association and the vice president of the China Group of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property.

Xuri Yang

Xuri Yang graduated from Peking University and now acts as chief inspector of intellectual property and intangible assets at Founder Group, supervising chairman of the Beijing IP Protection Association, chief chairman of the Beijing IP Development Salon, deputy secretary general of the DIAA, a member of the Copyright Protection Union and a member of the China Trademark Association.
Mr Yang is responsible for facilitating Founder Group’s work in intellectual property, standards and intangible assets in order to make Founder Group the model company for intellectual property in China. He has participated in pioneering domestic lawsuits, including those against HiTech and Blizzard.

Parker Zhang

Parker Zhang is the head of patents at Baidu. Before joining Baidu, Mr Zhang worked as an IP consultant at HP’s headquarters in California, United States, and was responsible for creating, protecting and developing global IP assets for departments such as HP Labs and HP Labs China.
Before working at HP, Mr Zhang was an IP lawyer at Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm headquartered in Silicon Valley that focuses on high technology, where he provided legal advice and services to hi-tech companies such as Google and Cisco. Mr Zhang was a software structure engineer in Microstrategy, Inc, a hi-tech company in Washington DC, before he worked as a lawyer.
Mr Zhang holds a BS in computer science from Peking University, an MS in computer science from the University of Texas, Austin, and a JD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is admitted to practise in California in the United States and is qualified as a US patent attorney.

Xuehong Zhang

Xuehong Zhang is the director of the legal and IP management department of Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group, and general counsel of Datang Mobile.
Ms Zhang is responsible for Datang Telecom Group’s legal and IP affairs. She has extensive research and practical experience in corporate innovation in information technology, the construction and development of IP management systems and the realisation of IP value, standards and patents.
Ms Zhang has a master’s in information engineering from the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications and a master’s in civil law from Peking University. Ms Zhang sits on the committee of the Beijing IP Protection Association and has been named as one of Beijing’s corporate IP experts by the Beijing IP Office.

Yan Zhang

Yan Zhang is a senior IP law counsel for IBM Asia Pacific Growth Market Units (GMU).
Ms Zhang is responsible for all of IBM’s IP matters and issues across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan). She manages the IP law departments in China, India and Taiwan, as well as an IBM virtual law firm in Korea. Her responsibilities include managing IBM patent and trademark portfolios in Asia-Pacific GMU countries. Her teams also participate in IP-related policies, legislation and practice-related lobbying.
Ms Zhang previously worked for six years as a patent examiner in the China Patent Office and for seven years as a division director for international cooperation in the State Intellectual Property Office of China.
Ms Zhang is qualified as an attorney at law and patent attorney in China. For three years she served as the chair of the Patent and Innovation Sub-committee of the Quality Brands Protection Committee, an industry association focusing on Chinese IP systems, environment improvement and reform.

Yousheng Zhang

Yousheng Zhang is a deputy director for the Intellectual Property Administrative Office (IPO) and International Technology Transfer Centre at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He is in charge of technology evaluation and commercialisation, patent licensing and partner development.
Dr Zhang received his bachelor’s degree and PhD from Tsinghua University. He carried out theoretical and experimental research in the areas of mechanical and electrical characterisation on nanowires at Tsinghua University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the National University of Singapore between January 2003 and August 2008.
He joined the Tsinghua University IPO in September 2008 and focuses on finding ways to help universities and international partners to commercialise their technologies successfully.