Board of Advisors
Board of Advisors
William J. Cotreau
Senior Counsel
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Bill has been a senior patent lawyer with E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company since 1999. Currently, at DuPont, Bill is a senior counsel to the Intellectual Assets Business (IAB), DuPont's centralized licensing business. He drafts and negotiates intellectual property agreements for a broad array of DuPont's Strategic Business Units. He also assists other attorneys in structuring, negotiating and drafting intellectual property transactions and informs the legal function of financial and tax issues which affect license structure. He prepares and prosecutes patent applications in electrochemical and polymer art areas.
Prior to his employment at DuPont, Bill served as senior Intellectual Property Counsel at Mobil Business Resources Corporation (a division of Mobil Oil).
Ron Laurie
Managing Director
Inflexion Point Strategy, LLC
Ron co-founded Inflexion Point Strategy, the first intellectual property investment bank. Prior to launching Inflexion Point, Ron was a founding partner of Skadden Arps' Palo Alto office where he chaired the firm's IP Strategy and Transactions Group for six years. At Skadden, he led IP teams in some of the largest technology deals ever done, worth over $50 billion. He was also a founding partner of the Silicon Valley offices of Weil Gotshal and Irell & Manella.
Ron has been an advisor to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the U.S. Copyright Office, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the National Research Council, the National Academy of Science and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency based in Geneva. He is on the Executive Council of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and is a permanent faculty member of the World Law Institute. He is on the editorial boards of The Journal of Internet Law and The Computer Lawyer magazines and co-edited a two-volume treatise titled International Intellectual Property. He has been a Director of the Computer Law Association, and has served on the Executive Committees of the International Intellectual Property Association and the Intellectual Property Section of the State Bar of California. Ron was recently named as one of the World's Leading IP Strategists by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine.
Eric C. Lund
Commercialization Manager
Battelle and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Eric Lund is a Commercialization Manager for the Battelle Memorial Institute, and works at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is operated by Battelle under contract with the US Department of Energy. Eric manages a portfolio of chemistry and physical sciences technologies, overseeing patent prosecution and negotiating licenses. Eric was previously an Assistant Vice Chancellor of Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and most recently the Assistant Director of the Technology Transfer Office at the University of California, San Diego. Eric received his B.S. in chemistry from Washington State University, and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Davis. Eric also has an MBA in finance and economics from the University of Washington.
James Markarian
Senior Counsel and Licensing Manager for North America
Siemens Corporation
James Markarian is Senior Counsel and Licensing Manager for North America for Siemens Corporation. He manages Siemensï؟½ outbound licensing programs and IP sales; handles incoming licensing matters and IP acquisitions; and negotiates and drafts various transactional agreements (e.g., IP licenses, JVï؟½s, Software licenses, R&Dï؟½s, Agent and Service, Asset Purchase or Sale, NDA's, etc.). James provides support for Siemensï؟½ M&A activities, advises Siemensï؟½ business units regarding IP asset management as well as IP issues related to standards organizations. He has an Aerospace Engineering degree from Boston University and a JD degree from Brooklyn Law School. Before joining Siemens, he worked for Refac Corporation, and the law firms of Pennie & Edmonds; Ladas & Parry; and, Wyatt, Gerber, Burke & Badie.
Steven J. Meyers
Division Intellectual Property Counsel - Storage Products Division
International Business Machines Corporation
Steven Meyers is IBM's chief IP lawyer for IBM's storage products division. He has been an Intellectual Property attorney and manager at IBM for 25 years for traditional business units and businesses in their formation/incubation stage. These positions included Software Group Intellectual Property Counsel, Corporate Patent Portfolio Manager, Internet Division IP Counsel and various IP licensing related roles including patent and multimedia licensing and management of patent engineers. He received his legal education from Pace University School of Law and Georgetown University School of Law.
Joe O'Shea
Director of Corporate Development - Open Innovation
The Danaher Corporation
Joe O'Shea is Director, Corporate Development - Open Innovation for the Danaher Corporation. Joe is responsible for helping Danaher businesses execute Open Innovation transactions. This includes advising on sourcing, structuring, valuing and negotiating transactions such as licenses, partnerships and joint ventures. Additionally, Joe works closely with the Business Development, Legal and Engineering teams among the Danaher businesses to drive best practices around Danaher's Open Innovation activities.
Joe joined Danaher in 2008 from General Electric Company where he worked for 33 years. There Joe spent the past 25 years in Open Innovation leadership positions and most recently was the Chief Innovation Officer and Managing Director, Ventures for GE Licensing & Trading. Joe had been with GE's International, later Corporate Licensing group since 1982 and accumulated substantial licensing experiences with a broad spectrum of GE technologies particularly in emerging economies like India, China, and Brazil.
Joe has a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, College of Engineering and an MBA from Pace University, Lubin School of Business.
Alan Sorgi
Director of Intellectual Property Portfolio Management
AppliedMicro
Alan Sorgi is AppliedMicro's Director of Intellectual Property Portfolio Management.
During the last 14 years he has been working in the semiconductor industry and for the last 5 years he has been leading AppliedMicro's Intellectual Property Department. As the Director of IP Portfolio Management he is charged with exploring the intellectual property arena for the purposes of creating the best patent asset partnerships, acquisitions, sales, licenses, creating monetization vehicles and IP monetization programs. His duties include the identification of potential assets, leading the technical, legal, and economic analysis, negotiations, strategy and overall innovation management.
Alan is one of the leading authorities in monetizing IP portfolios, valuing technology and IP assets as well as closing licensing and sale deals. He has led numerous IP negotiations and has closed many multi-million dollar deals. He manages the entire life cycle of patent sales and acquisition projects, from concept to conclusion, including the exercise of efficient project management oversight and budget discipline. Alan has a vast network of deep relationships with various patent brokers, bankers, defensive firms, Non-Practicing Entities (NPE's) as well as strategic companies (operating companies) so as to effectively, sell, buy and license technology and IP.
Frank Vollrath
Director of Intellectual Property Operations
Xerox Corporation
Frank Vollrath is the newly appointed Director of Intellectual Property Operations at Xerox Corporation responsible for IP commercialization and protection.
Prior to this appointment, Frank had served within Xerox as the Manager for Intellectual Property Business Operations responsible for finance, IT, administration and governance functions within the group. Frank's previous roles in Xerox include finance responsibility for technology spinouts, the technology incubation function and IP Licensing as well as assignments in treasury, financial services and marketing operations.
Frank completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Boston University receiving his MBA with Honors and his BSBA, Magna Cum Laude.
David Wanetick
Managing Director
IncreMental Advantage
David is a Managing Director at IncreMental Advantage, a world renowned intellectual property valuation firm. He is a thought leader in valuing emerging technologies and intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, customer lists and contracts. His clients include leading technology transfer offices, solo inventors, Fortune 100 companies, mid-sized companies, law firms, incubators, venture capital and private equity firms. His valuations are conducted for licensing, capital raising, tax reporting, and litigation support purposes. He developed the widely acclaimed Total Valuation Extraction methodology for assessing the value of emerging technologies as well as the Patent Valuation Gauntlet for determining the value of patents.
He has written several books on investing and his articles have been published in virtually all of the intellectual property, accounting, IP law, and, valuation publications in the US, Canada and the UK. He lectures on the Valuation of Emerging Technologies all over the US as well as in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Israel.