Presentation Title: In Re Blue Buffalo and Functional Language Murkiness

Jennifer Bales was employed as an engineer with Hughes Aircraft Company prior to law school at the University of Colorado. While at Hughes, Jennifer developed systems for digital signal processing, image processing and radar, while attaining a master’s degree in optics from University of Southern California. Jennifer has extensive experience obtaining and enforcing patents in the fields of signal processing, optics, optoelectronics, radar, and lidar. She is currently a partner in the intellectual property firm Macheledt Bales LLP.

Presentation Title: Using Petitions to Keep from Getting Stuck

David Boundy is a partner at Pierson Ferdinand LLP. Mr. Boundy practices at the intersection of patent and administrative law, and consults with other firms on court and administrative agency proceedings, including PTAB trials and appeals. In 2007–09, Mr. Boundy led teams that successfully urged the Office of Management and Budget to withhold approval of the USPTO’s continuations, 5/25 claims, information disclosure statements, and appeal regulations under the Paperwork Reduction Act. He may be reached at DavidBoundyEsq@gmail.com

Presentation Title: An Introduction to Standards Essential Patents

Devin Brennan is the co-founder of Flare, an IP boutique firm, where he leads the preparation and prosecution team for several large companies. Before Flare, he transitioned from engineering into patent law, culminating in his promotion to Principal Patent Agent — the first partner-level patent agent position at an AM Law 200 firm. His work spans standards essential patents (SEPs), semiconductors, and cybersecurity.

Presentation Title: Updated Prosecution Strategies for a Rapidly Changing Patent Office

Tom Cecil is a registered patent attorney, owner of Cecil Law PLLC, and an adjunct professor of patent law at the Texas A&M University School of Law where he supervises the patent clinic. Tom has a background in electrical and computer engineering and assists clients of various sizes obtain IP protection, primarily in the electrical arts. Tom also has over a decade of complex IP litigation experience and applies lessons learned in litigation in his prosecution practice today.

Presentation Title: Strategies for Writing Winning Pre-Appeal and Appeal Briefs

Srini Chakravarthi, Ph.D. is a partner at Slater Matsil, LLP, where he focuses on patent portfolio management including patent prosecution, licensing, and enforcement support, and leads a practice group specializing in semiconductors, circuits, signal processing, networking, and AI. With nearly two decades in IP practice and over a decade as an engineer and researcher, he is a named inventor on 25 U.S. patents and holds engineering degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (B.S.) and Boston University (Ph.D.). He serves as Co-Chair of the Dallas Bar IP Section CLE Committee and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Texas A&M Law School.

Presentation Title: Nuts & Bolts Session – Ex Parte Reexamination

Bio coming soon….

Presentation Title: Nuts and Bolts: Ex Parte Reexamination

Jason D. Eisenberg is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice Group and Chair for the firm’s Reexamination, Supplemental Examination, and Reissue Practice. Jason previously spent half a decade as Chair of the Electronics Practice Group and prior to that as Chair of the Docketing Committee. Jason balances global preparation and prosecution, client counseling, and opinions with a Patent Trial and Appeal Board, Central Reexamination Unit, and Federal Circuit cases. Over the course of his career, Jason has been involved in 100 complex reissues and as a litigation expert, 150 reexaminations, 300 inter partes and post-grant reviews, 20 Federal Circuit cases, several Supreme Court appeals (cert petitions and amici briefs), 130 opinions, due diligence, enforcement, and defense from nearly 30 years of patent experience. Jason is currently editor and co-author of the firm’s monthly “Reexamination, Reissue, and Supplemental Examination Strategies and Insights” newsletter and was previously editor and co-author of the “PTAB Strategies and Insights” monthly newsletter. Jason and Robert Greene Sterne were co-editors and authors of several chapters of the Second Edition of Patent Office Litigation (Thomson Reuters, 2017).

Presentation Title: What a Difference a Year Makes: Changing Examiner Metrics and Impact on Your Practice

Lee is a registered patent attorney and focuses his practice on strategic patent procurement and client counseling. He has helped clients pursue patent rights in many electrical and mechanical disciplines, including oilfield equipment and services, HVAC systems, software, semiconductors, medical imaging, liquid crystal displays, and consumer electronics.

Presentation Title: Professional Responsibility and Practice Before the USPTO

From Jan 2011 to the present, she serves as a senior staff attorney at the USPTO Office of Enrollment and Discipline where she investigates grievances and complaints alleging misconduct by patent and trademark practitioners; conducts moral character and “fitness to practice” applications for individuals seeking registration before the USPTO; and was the primary architect in establishing a Diversion Program for impaired practitioners, which now has become a formal rule.

Presentation Title: Nuts & Bolts Session – Ex Parte Reexamination

Jon Hobbs, PhD, is Director at IP Solution in Atlanta specializing in patent prosecution across diverse technologies, products, and processes. Jon serves on the IP section committee of the Atlanta Bar Association, and is on the editorial board of the Atlanta Lawyer Magazine, and the Atlanta AFCEA chapter.

Presentation Title: Navigating Change at the USPTO: Emerging Practice Trends, Practitioner Resources, and Strategies for Effective Patent Prosecution

Sean K. Hunter has over 15 years of experience in various roles within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), currently serving as a Senior Advisor for the Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Patents (International Patent Cooperation) since December 2008. Responsibilities include managing communications, collaborating with senior management, coordinating projects, and delivering training on the Global Dossier tool. Previous roles at USPTO include Supervisory Patent Examiner, Senior Advisor to the Commissioner for Patents, and Attorney Patent Examiner, focusing on patent evaluations and examinations. Additionally, Sean K. Hunter has experience in legal counsel, project management, and technology commercialization, complemented by advanced degrees in law, business, and civil engineering from the University of Illinois, and a certificate from Stanford University.

Presentation Title: Patenting from In-House:  Getting Patents with Jury Appeal

A company should care that its patents will be, if eventually necessary, litigated as successfully as possible. To improve on this company objective, when an in-house patent practitioner procures patents, whether by themselves or through outside practitioners, they could further take additional measures to orient their company’s patents, so they have jury appeal. Such additional measures include techniques that range from reducing unnecessary cognitive load to jurors to engaging their higher human functions.

Presentation Title: Marketing your Invention: an “On Sale Bar” Update

Justin Krieger is Managing Partner of Kilpatrick’s Denver office and is a leading patent strategist with more than 25 years of experience guiding clients through complicated intellectual property challenges. He counsels clients frequently on validity and infringement assessments and teaches courses at the University of Denver and Mitchell-Hamline Law Schools on PTAB litigation..

Presentation Title: Patent practice essentials in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia

John is a patent attorney in Australia and New Zealand with about 25 years’ experience. John has a PhD in chemistry with a focus on drafting and global prosecution for Australian and New Zealand companies in therapeutics, food technologies, and materials area. John is also the current President of the Australian Institute of Patent and Trademark attorneys. (IPTA)

Presentation Title: LLM Hallucinations for Attorneys

Brendan Lillis is a registered patent attorney, former USPTO patent examiner (in the computer memory art unit), and current subject matter expert at Questel for Qthena, an AI-assisted patent prosecution workflow, data, and collaboration platform.

Presentation Title: In Re Blue Buffalo and Functional Language Murkiness

Michael G. “Mike” Locklar represents clients in a variety of fields, including chemicals, oil & gas, software, computers and computer hardware, electronics, consumer products, and medical devices. In his 23 years of IP practice, Mike’s practice has included litigation, prosecution, and transactional work.

Presentation Title: Nuts & Bolts Session – Ex Parte Reexamination

Bio coming soon…

Presentation Title: Examiner Typology: A Humorous Look at Some Types and Stereotypes

Gary ONeill is Managing Director of Examiners Edge®️ Patent Agency and a licensed US Patent Agent. He has over 25 years of experience in areas of patent practice spanning private law firms, boutique IP businesses, and government, including as a former US Patent Examiner at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from NYU Polytechnic, a Master’s degree in Theology from Calvary Seminary, earned the Senior grade of the Institute of Elec/Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and serves on the international board of Elsevier’s Invention Disclosure Journal.

Presentation Title: Patents and Congress

Anthony is a patent professional licensed to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He serves as the Director of Intellectual Property (IP) Policy for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Senator Thom Tillis – Chairman of the Subcommittee on IP – to whom he advises on all IP matters (e.g., patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret). Peter-Anthony also advises the Senator on tech policy (e.g., artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.), antitrust, and Judiciary Committee nominations, including Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Previously, he served on detail as a Professional Staff Member for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Senator Tillis – then Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on IP. Prior to his roles in the U.S. Senate, Peter-Anthony served on detail as the Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for IP and Director of the USPTO. He advised the Director on IP, artificial intelligence (AI), and agency operational matters. Most notably, Peter-Anthony helped develop the 2019 “Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance,” a framework for how the agency could leverage AI for assisting in search during examination, and the first agency working group tasked with considering the interplay between AI and IP rights. While at the USPTO Peter-Anthony served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Subcommittee AI Research and Development Interagency Working Group and he served on the Department of Commerce Interagency Committee on Standards Policy (ICSP) AI Standards Coordination Working Group. He has also served in various other USPTO roles, including Patent Trial and Appeal Board Branch Chief, Supervisory Patent Examiner, and Primary Patent Examiner. Peter-Anthony has co-authored two papers with the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist – “Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTO” and “Patents and the Independent Inventor Lifecycle.” These papers are based on USPTO’s first randomized control trial, which was created by Peter-Anthony. This randomized control trial also served as the foundation for the creation of the agency’s Pro Se Pilot Program, which provided affirmative patent assistance to independent inventors and small businesses. Peter-Anthony also served on the Supervisory Patent Examiners and Classifiers Organization (SPECO) Board of Directors for over a decade and for nearly five of those years served as Chairman of the Board of Directors. SPECO is a nonprofit organization, established over 50 years ago, that promotes the progress of the patent examination system and is comprised of over 400 USPTO managers and professionals. Peter-Anthony also serves on multiple other boards and committees. Peter-Anthony received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and received an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the third generation of his family to pursue public service.

Presentation Title: Intersection of AI, Ethics and the USPTO

Tammy Pennington Rhodes is the Principal at Supercharger, where she plays an active role in AI search strategy designs for the many AI powered services provided by Supercharger and counseling clients on AI effective and efficient search strategies. Prior to Supercharger, she represented clients in complex patent litigation as well as managed a diverse prosecution portfolio.

Presentation Title: The Power Law Curve of Patent Valuation

Kip has been practicing intellectual property law for over 15 years and is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. ​ Kip previously worked at several patent law boutiques, where he assisted numerous technology companies with preparing and prosecuting patent applications. His extensive experience spans various technology areas, including displays, projectors, xerography, electric vehicles and batteries, digital cameras and optics, games and artificial intelligence, cellular networks, cybersecurity, virtual/augmented reality, and semiconductors.

Presentation Title: Effective Examiner Interviews

Mr. Young is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS in Computer Engineering and a MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He worked as an engineer and engineering manager at HP, Pixar, Intel, and Gateway and has been named as an inventor on more than 50 issued US patents. Mr. Young passed the Patent Bar in 1999 and has been a full-time Patent Agent in solo practice for over 16 years.