LES Local Chapter Meetings

LES Iowa Chapter:
Intellectual Property Valuation And Royalty Audits Discussed

By Jason Sytsma, Chapter Communications Chair

On Monday, April 29, 2019, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, PLC and the University of Iowa Research Foundation sponsored a meeting of the Iowa Chapter of the Licensing Executive Society and hosted Shawn Fox and Alex Brandon of Sikich, LLC to discuss Intellectual Property Valuation and Royalty Audits. The experts led a discussion, Q&A, and case studies highlighting the purposes, standards, and methodologies of valuing IP, as well as practical considerations for structuring licensing agreements and auditing royalty payments. Twenty-three people attended the event, located at Shuttleworth & Ingersoll’s Coralville, Iowa office. 

LES Iowa Chapter leaders and speakers.

LES Montreal and the IP-Forum—Quebec (FORPIQ 2019)

By Martin Couillard, Advisor at the Research and Knowledge Transfer Office of HEC Montréal

On May 1, 2019, the LES Montreal chapter was a proud supporter of FORPIQ (International Intellectual Property Forum—Quebec), where more than 150 people were registered. FORPIQ is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to increase the level of knowledge of innovative Canadian companies and their advisers with respect to IP assets. Therefore, FORPIQ is “THE rendezvous” of the innovation and intellectual property community.

This year, the theme of this 10th edition of FORPIQ was: “Navigating in an era where open innovation and intellectual property intertwine” (https://www.forpiq.com/). We have explored how IP and open innovation can go hand in hand to help businesses and research collaboration.

The event opened with very interesting insights from our honorary president Carl Blanchet—Director of Innovation at Cascades, who talked about centralized innovation function and interaction of different business units, R&D and innovation committee at Cascades.
Then, high level speakers from different horizons, including experts from Tangible IP, CCM Hockey, INO, Hydro-Québec, FBI, Arche Innovation, and many more came to share their knowledge with the audience and propose best practices on several topics like freedom to operate, Co-IP, trade secrets, IP in data/software, R&D funding and management of an IP portfolio.

Worth mentioning, is an inspiring keynote presentation given by Nitiana Mann, Supervisory Special Agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), on how to safeguard trade secrets for companies and startups alike.

During the afternoon, the participants could participate in four different interactive workshops:

• This session started with a panel on IP in data/software, where the brand new Montreal Data Licence Montreal Data License and its License Generator was presented for the first time in public. This license generator (available at montrealdatalicense.com) is a user-friendly tool for clearer language in data licensing in AI and ML.
  
• Programs for fuelling innovation were presented, with NSERC’s first public presentation of their new Alliance program, Mitacs Canada, Innovation Canada, Prompt Innov, along with Quebec Innove.
  
• In a sprint design workshop, we propelled ourselves into 2040 with a Re-innovate workshop (https://re-innovate.ca/) on the role of the future of the Canadian Space Agency and on the issues related to the exploitation of satellite data by SMEs.
  
• Monetizing IP in a business context for financing and acquisition was another topic.

Before the cocktail, we had the pleasure of attending the closing conference given by Noah Redler, founder and CEO of Arche Innovation, where we revisited the past, learn about the current situation and discover the future of IP.

This conference explored the recent evolution of IP and the manner in which the startup culture, and the rise of open innovation, may transform IP in the era of the digital economy. This has also set the stage for the next edition of FORPIQ, in which the LES Montreal chapter will actively participate once again. We look forward to seeing you in Montreal soon.

Quotes from the day:
“Intellectual property in Canada is more of a recreational sport compared to in the United States, where it is a contact sport.”
— Louis Carbonneau of Tangible IP
“Better to speak of litigation risk reduction than referring to ‘freedom to operate.’ ”      
— Pierre Cantin, CCM Hockey
“Your mobile phone is likely covered by at least one battery-related patent owned by Hydro-Quebec.”
— Karim Zhagib, Director General, Center of Excellence, ETSE, Hydro-Québec
“IP strategy is about securing the market (not about patents or other specific forms of protection), and presents a barrier to entry to competitors at specific points in the value chain.”
— Antoine Bellemare, Fonds Innov-Export

Attendees at the IP-Forum in Quebec.

LES Toronto World IP Day Event

By Phil Goldbach, Past Chapter Chair

The Toronto LES Chapter annually hosts an engaging and lively celebration of World IP Day. As Toronto continues to draw attention from global technology companies for its expertise in AI and therapeutics, the chapter uses the World IP Day event to remind its community that technology patents are only one type of IP.

In keeping with tradition, this year’s event held on April 25 featured invited speakers, Jacqueline Vong and Nicole Schneiderjohn, co-founders of Playology International, a leading strategic consultancy focusing on international licensing and merchandising of kids’ media products. They spoke about their first-hand experiences bringing successful children’s entertainment brands to market in China and North America. They also addressed the growth of content adopters in Asia and the content generators looking to engage in the Canadian market. Doing business in China with its huge market potential came up. The global market dynamics for media distribution channels are changing rapidly. Both culture and children as influencers play a key role. Paul Jones, whose firm helps North American companies do business in China said, “Since China has the largest population of any country in the world, it’s good to have a discussion of the improvement in IP protection and enforcement as part of a World IP Day event.”

Among the 35 or so people in attendance was a diverse group of professionals from law firms, innovative companies, academia and government. Indeed, the crowd was highly engaged throughout the talk, which was followed by a lively Q&A session. Jacqueline Vong and Nicole Schneiderjohn commented, “It was an honor to celebrate World IP day with LES and all the IP experts in attendance. We were happy that we had an engaged audience and could share our collective experience in children’s entertainment, kids content, China and even a Baby Shark sing-a-long.”

The World IP Day social has quickly become one of the cornerstone events in LES Toronto’s annual calendar. According to Toronto Chapter Chair, Karen Temple, “bringing together business and legal for a practical discussion of how businesses monetize IP is always valuable.”

As is typical for the Toronto chapter’s social events, the event went well past its scheduled end time. LES Toronto’s leadership team are already looking forward to celebrating World IP Day 2020.

LES Toronto leaders and organizers: Karen Temple (left), Ekaterina Logunov, Phil Goldbach, Robert Tremblay and Thanh Vuong.

LES Silicon Valley Chapter
Annual Conference—5G & IP—Are You Ready?

By Martha Casey

On April 17th, the Silicon Valley Chapter celebrated its 19th successful year with an all-day annual conference, “5G & IP—Are You Ready?” Speakers and panelists representing various companies and academia including Qualcomm, Ericsson, IP Checkups, Nokia, Samsung, and representative venture capitalists, created an educational and informative program on all aspects of the long-awaited technology.  Culminating the conference, Tom Klitgaard, former SVP/General Counsel, SEGA of America and Tandem Computers, provided a Chinese perspective with his presentation, “5G and Huawei: Business & National Security Issues.” Hosted by Oracle at its world headquarters in Redwood City, almost 100 attendees were engaged until the very end of the conference. With 10 meetings a year, the SV Chapter attracts attendees from several states in addition to California’s Silicon Valley.

The conference program addressed:

• What is 5G and why does it matter?
  
• Who are the 5G players in semiconductors, handsets, IoT, and other affected markets?
  
• What are the key new enterprises and consumer-facing applications that 5G enables?
  
• What does the 5G patent landscape look like?
  
• What are the licensing and other partnering models for 5G, and what are their business and IP implications? 

Sponsors included: Allied Security Trust (lunch sponsor), Dolcera, Finjan Holdings, Inc., IP Checkups, Inc., IP Value Management, Inc., and iRunway/UnitedLex.

Panelists and attendees at the Silicon Valley Chapter Annual Conference.

LES Colorado Chapter

Anastasia Martin-Wegryn (left), Arthur Nutter, Tim Bullock, Adam Gianola, Nicoletta Kennedy, Sara Bradford, Carrie Hafeman, and not pictured, Solange Nutter.

LES Colorado hosted this group for a lively discussion led by Nicoletta Kennedy titled “Tips on Trade Secret Protection” for licensors and licensees. Held on June 5 in Denver at the offices of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, Anastasia Martin-Wegryn (co-chair) organized the event. Art Nutter (co-chair) commented, “It’s great to see the Colorado chapter gaining traction again. Thanks to all the recent attendees. Spread the word!”