Brian Walters

Brian D. Walters serves as Executive Vice-President and General Counsel for Matthews International Corporation, Pittsburgh’s oldest company in continuous operation since 1850 and operating in over 25 countries with over 12,000 employees.  During his 18-year tenure at Matthews, the Company has more than tripled in annual revenue, now producing approximately $1.8 billion in sales.   Brian has directed all legal matters for this publicly-traded corporation both nationally and internationally, as well as serving as a member of Matthews’ executive leadership team.  Mr. Walters has led over 75 domestic and foreign acquisition initiatives at Matthews, including extensive experience coordinating strategies to secure transaction approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, managing HSR filings, as well as filings with the competition authority of the European Union.

Stephen Lee

Stephen Lee is Chief I.P. Counsel at Target and has been with the company for the past 19 years. His practice has covered the entire spectrum of I.P. matters, as he has been responsible for all trademark, copyright and patent work. Particularly rewarding is the fact that his team provides legal services and advice to practically every business team within Target and has touched almost every one of Target’s key strategic initiatives. He manages a team of 24 high-functioning I.P. professionals, and he has first-hand experience leading his team through the ups and downs of the retail landscape transformation.

For the eight years prior to joining Target, Stephen practiced law as a partner at Fish & Richardson and as an associate at Faegre & Benson both in Minneapolis. In private practice, Stephen’s practice was equally diverse as it covered all aspects of I.P.: portfolio maintenance, litigation, contract drafting and negotiation, and strategy and counseling.

Stephen is a proud graduate of the University of Texas where he received both his B.A. and J.D. degrees. Stephen is married and has three children, ages 17, 15 and 6.

Deepak Parashar

Tara Stuart

Tara Stuart is Assistant General Counsel, IP at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where she is the IP lead for the Inflammation and Fibrosis Therapeutic Areas.  She and her team focus on patent strategy, prosecution, and portfolio management in all stages of pharmaceutical development.   As a registered patent attorney, Tara was previously in private practice where she specialized in patent prosecution, litigation, and counseling with an emphasis in pharmaceuticals.  Tara received her JD from University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall, an MS in Chemistry from Indiana University, and formerly worked an oncology research scientist at Loyola University Medical School.

Lily Lim

Lily Lim leads worldwide intellectual property, software, and info-security legal strategies at Fortive, a $20B conglomerate of software, instrumentation, and medical device companies.  Lily also provides legal strategies for the Fort, the artificial intelligence center at Fortive.  She is a strategic partner to business, product, engineering, and security leaders at Fortive and its operating companies. 

Before joining Fortive, Lily was at ServiceNow, where she served as the Legal Director for Intellectual Property, Strategic Initiatives, and New Products, partnering with cross-functional teams to drive innovation and new product releases to new levels and speeds.  Prior to that role, Lily was a partner at Finnegan, Henderson LLP in Palo Alto, California, successfully representing clients in intellectual property, privacy, and cybersecurity matters.  Lily also dedicated time to government service, serving as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable S. Jay Plager at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and serving as a spacecraft navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Lily’s JD is from Yale Law School.  Her MS in Mechanical Engineering is from MIT, and she earned a BS in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois.  Lily has proficiency in Mandarin and counts a number of privacy, cybersecurity, and IP certifications and registrations among her credentials.

Bridget Smith

Tao Zhang

Lorie Goins

Catherine Tornabene

Catherine Tornabene is the Deputy General Counsel, Intellectual Property at Aurora, a leading autonomous vehicle company. Catherine has been with Aurora since June 2017 and in her role works on all aspects of intellectual property. She has been an intellectual property attorney since 2007 and prior to Aurora, worked at Google Inc. and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Prior to attending law school, she worked as a software engineer at a startup that was ultimately acquired by Netscape and then AOL. Catherine earned BAs in Computer Science and History at UC Santa Cruz, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, and her JD at UC Hastings. She is also an inventor on two patents.

Kristin Lamb

Kristin Lamb is Associate General Counsel, Senior Director of Intellectual Property and Regulatory Compliance for ŌURA, a late-stage health and wellness wearable startup based in Finland and San Francisco that makes the Oura Ring. Kristin leads all aspects of IP development, protection, and enforcement for the company. 

Prior to working at ŌURA, Kristin was in private practice with Hogan Lovells in Houston, Texas. She is a former biochemist and patented inventor, studied biochemistry at the University of Colorado, and received her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. She is admitted to the California, Colorado, District of Columbia, and Texas bars, and is a registered patent attorney with the USPTO. 

Sharon Lai

Helen Li

Helen Liis an associate director of patents and patent portfolio manager of AI innovations at the Intel Corporation.  She also serves as the Patent Group Counsel to Office of the Intel CTO & Software and Advanced Technology Group.  Prior to joining the Intel, she was a patent attorney at Fenwick & West LLP, where she advised clients on IP strategy and prosecuted patents in computer engineering technologies such as AI.  She has a PhD in computer engineering and JD both from Santa Clara University. 

Ceyda Azakli Maisami

Keith Wilson

Keith Wilson is executive vice president, partnerships and acquisitions, at IPValue Management Inc.  IPValue’s mission is to generate value for leading innovative enterprises by licensing their patented inventions. IPValue has returned well over $1bn to high-tech enterprises from its licensing activities and, over the past four years, has acquired rights to over 10,000 patents. Mr Wilson has over 25 years of experience in intellectual property law, licensing, and management. Before joining IPValue, Mr Wilson was vice president, general and IP Counsel at Solus Microtechnologies, a venture capital-funded technology company. Mr Wilson worked for over a decade for Litton Industries, a $5bn technology company, in a number of technical, legal, and executive positions, including chief IP counsel. Mr Wilson has a BS in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law.

Harry Harden

Harry heads Kilburn & Strode’s, San Francisco liaison office. With a background in physics, he primarily works on software, automotive and autonomous driving technologies.

His practice involves advising on filing strategies across the globe, particularly for Silicon Valley companies, with a focus on balancing efficiency with strength of IP protection.

Harry has particular expertise in risk assessment (freedom to operate) and patent portfolio strength analysis as companies approach IPO. Recent work has involved detailed

patent due diligence investigations to advise on commercial implications of patent portfolios.

Michael Messinger

Mike is a partner in the Vorys Washington, D.C. office and member of the intellectual property group.  He began his career serving for six years as a patent examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) handling an active optoelectronic devices and systems docket.  Now, Mike brings unique patent solutions from defensive and offensive perspectives.  He helps clients harvest innovation, protect products and services, and monetize or defend patent portfolios.

Throughout his career, Mike has helped companies of all sizes, universities and individuals create IP strategies for protection and to enhance their freedom-to-operate in computer, electronics and sustainable technologies. He routinely works with company officers and engineers to identify patentable inventions and build strategic patent portfolios. Mike also has significant experience as lead counsel in complex inter partes review proceedings, reissue and ex parte patent reexamination before the USPTO.

Mike has deep experience prosecuting U.S. and international patent applications.  This includes developing worldwide patent portfolios that track company business goals and writing and prosecuting numerous patent applications covering inventions in cloud computing, machine learning, computer networking (Internet and World-Wide Web technologies), browsers, geographical information systems, graphics processing,  high-speed optical communications, solar, wind and tidal energy, and data mining.  Mike has also helped clients sell, license or enforce hundreds of patents. 

Mike serves as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches patent licensing.

Mike received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and his B.S. magna cum laude, in physics, from Duke University.

Prior to joining Vorys, Mike was the co-founder of the boutique IP law firm Shami Messinger PLLC and earlier in his career he served as a partner at other IP boutique and general practice law firms.

Daniel S. Block

Daniel S. Block is a director in Sterne Kessler's Electronics Practice Group. Dan’s practice primarily focuses on patent and anti-counterfeiting litigation at the International Trade Commission and in Federal district court. Dan has been integral in designing and implementing anti-counterfeiting measures for numerous international brands, with a focus on cost-neutral enforcement strategies. He has also served as counsel in over 50 post-grant proceedings at the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board. His technical expertise covers many areas of computing including: computer graphics, networking communications, web services, complex computer architectures, and storage systems.