2023 World IP Day Celebration

Valencia Martin-Wallace, USPTO Deputy Commissioner For International Patent Cooperation

As the Deputy Commissioner for Patents at the Commerce Department’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), she is responsible for leading the organization’s international patent cooperation programs and initiatives. She also has oversight of the technology centers responsible for examining patent applications in the fields of telecommunications, mechanical technologies, and design.    

She graduated with a B.S. in electrical engineering from Howard University, where she learned alongside a wonderful group of students from diverse backgrounds. After flexing her engineering muscle for three years, she decided to pursue intellectual property (IP) law at George Washington University School of Law. At about the same time, she began her career at the USPTO as a patent examiner. After graduating from law school, I realized public service at the USPTO was the right career choice for her. Nearly 29 years later, she is still a member of the USPTO community. She says she would not be where she is today, in an exciting career in IP, without the support and guidance of very progressive parents, teachers, and mentors, and the examples set before me by talented women scientists, engineers, and attorneys.

She has had the unique pleasure and responsibility of being the executive lead, assisting the Director of the USPTO, with establishing the National Council for Expanding American Innovation (NCEAI) and the development of the national strategy for expanding American innovation.

Former Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen O’Malley, Irell & Manella

Heather Khassian, Law Vice President, Intellectual Property at NCR Corporation

She is an experienced team manager and trusted legal advisor who currently leads a team of attorneys and support staff in North America in achieving corporate objectives efficiently, promptly, and within budget. Responsibilities include managing negotiation of all contracts, including vendor agreements, customer agreements, and joint business initiative agreements; managing litigation team, including assisting in developing of litigation objectives and strategy and working with business partners to achieve dispute resolution goals; managing legal clearance of new product offerings, including assessing regulatory issues, intellectual property issues, compliance issues, and alignment with corporate goals; overseeing legal aspects of employments issues; managing global trademark and patent portfolio.

Nisha Mody, Managing Director at Intensity, LLC

Nisha Mody, Ph.D., specializes in financial and economic consulting on intellectual property cases, business valuation cases, antitrust cases and unfair business practices cases, among others. She is an expert in the application of economic methods to complex business disputes and is retained in cases requiring economic analyses, financial analyses, valuations and/or damages-related analyses. Dr. Mody has constructed damages models in litigation involving reasonable royalties, lost profits, market share assessments, and but-for scenarios. She has also performed valuations of intellectual property (patents and trademarks) as well as valuations of tangible assets, including evaluating damages by applying econometric analyses to large databases.

With more than 20 years of experience in consulting and economic research, Dr. Mody is well regarded among the most prestigious law firms for her expert testimony. Her economic analyses have been affirmed by the Federal Circuit in three matters. She has written approximately 100 reports and given deposition/trial testimony in over 60 matters.  Before joining Intensity, Dr. Mody was a Co-Founder/Partner, at Eurekanomics, LLC. Prior to that, she served for almost a decade as a Partner for a top-tier economic consulting firm. There she worked on many high-stakes litigation projects. Before that, Dr. Mody spent over a decade at leading consulting firms.

Dr. Mody was previously a lecturer at the Santa Clara University School of Law and has authored articles in Les Nouvelles.  Dr. Mody received a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Public Policy from the University of Southern California, and a B.A. from Pomona College.

Rekha Patel, President & Founder,Xrathus

Rekha Patel is the Founder and President at Xrathus. Xrathus is a bichronous collaboration platform enabling organizations to accelerate projects and their solutions by seamlessly integrating people, processes and systems. The virtual environment fosters open collaboration between stakeholders and accelerates learning, sharing, and team-based innovation.  Rekha is highly adept in leading the overall management of strategic and operational initiatives, particularly around collaboration for digital transformation and technology development. She is also adept at initiatives related to marketing, client relationship activities, and cross-functional collaborations for digital transformations.  Rekha Patel has a notable ability to identify opportunities and bring people together around innovative technologies to promote business growth. She leverages strong organization, multi-tasking, and communication skills to effectively lead a business and offer advisory services.

Jennifer Vanderhart, Managing Director at Intensity, LLC

Jennifer is a PhD Economist and expert witness specializing in damages and valuation analysis in the areas of intellectual property, breach of contract, international arbitration proceedings, antitrust, and commercial damages. She is based in Washington, DC and have testified more than 50 times in U.S. state and federal courts, in front of domestic and international arbitration panels, and in depositions. Her clients include companies in wide range of industries and retail sectors including education, computer hardware and software, toys, alcoholic beverage distribution, medical devices, entertainment, mining, tobacco and financial services.

She has also assisted companies in patent and trademark licensing negotiations, royalty investigations and calculations, and intellectual property and asset valuations. She has also testified as to the appropriate data cost-sharing compensation under FIFRA. She taught at Texas A&M University and has published on valuation, damages and, econometrics, and intellectual property and is a frequent speaker on these topics at conferences and lectures. She is a member of the American Society of International Law, of which she recently co-chaired the Intellectual Property Interest Group, the Licensing Executives Society, where she serves on the Advisory Council for the DC Chapter, and she is an associate member of the American Bar Association, where she co-chairs the Intellectual Property Litigation subcommittee.

Her specialties include Intellectual property, international arbitration, commercial litigation, ASCAP, FIFRA, antitrust, patent infringement damages, trademark infringement damages, trade secret damages, valuation, expert witness.