The modern US economy relies heavily on industry standards which are often created through cooperative industry efforts with standard-setting organizations such as UL, NEMA, IEEE, IEC, and ANSI, amongst others. These standards rely heavily upon patents and intellectual property. The patent owners have a right to be compensated for the use of their intellectual property, along with the right to deny the use of the IP, because they have a government-sanctioned monopoly. Therefore, the patent owners hold a great deal of power over established industry standards and over changes to those standards. 

To change an established standard to avoid a patent dispute can be very expensive. The patent owner has a right to block movement in industries without a fair payment to the patent owner, because it is not always possible to change the standard to avoid the patent. This Webinar discusses the dynamics of standards and patents and how these interactions might end up with antitrust implications.

The America Invents Act reforms the US patent system for the first time in nearly 60 years.  Jeffrey Whittle and Michael Samardzija will explore how the numerous changes to the US patent system may impact valuation, licensing and acquisition of patents and some techniques initially to consider when addressing various risks that these changes may bring, including from the licensor/licensee and buyer/seller perspectives.

 
Who Should Attend:

• Corporate IP Professionals
• Corporate Licensing Executives
• In-House Counsel
• Business Development Professionals
• Technology Transfer Professionals
• Attorneys
• Consultants
• Academics
• Students

Sponsored By:

The right to exclude is an important part of any patent licensor's bargaining position.  This webinar will relate this key factor to the current "in flux" state of the law regarding injunctions and ongoing royalty rulings.  Negotiation tactics and strategies for addressing these factors will be discussed.

Who Should Attend:

• Corporate IP Professionals
• Corporate Licensing Executives
• In-House Counsel
• Business Development Professionals
• Technology Transfer Professionals
• Attorneys
• Consultants
• Academics
• Students

Companies are challenged by competitors, technologies, infringers, and NPEs.  Most companies react only when a challenge arises, and few have a comprehensive strategy with a defense in place.  Learn how to create an IP defensive web.  Before spending nights worrying about IP cases, plan a strategy on how to win before facing an assertion.  Understand the key corporate components and how to manage the components according to your budget.  Learn from industry experts how to use existing tools and services to start your IP defensive web.  Hear from experts about how to respond to different threats, what short term tactical methods to deploy, and what are longer-term options and strategies.

This webinar reviews warranties of product quality for sophisticated or specialized software, custom software development services, and information and data.  Using Dreadfully Drafted examples, we review what warranties are implied by U.S. and Canadian law, and conclude that it would be better to negotiate express warranties suitable for intangibles such as software and information rather than for physically tangible products, taking into account the nature of the particular market.  We will consider what warranties allocate the risk fairly for licensed software, the difference between "results-based" warranties and "efforts-based" warranties for custom software services, and what warranties of accuracy and reliability apply to information and data. With the aid of Dreadful Drafter we consider tips for drafting the warranties once the legal principles and risks have been defined and allocated.  Interactivity will be encouraged by online questions.

Financial Elements of IP Contracts: Drafting, Monitoring and Compliance Audits navigates the nuances of drafting key financial terms for license agreements and shows how proper monitoring and auditing should occur once a deal is in place. Lawyers involved in drafting license and other self-reporting contracts typically understand boilerplate provisions but not the financial nuances that are subject to high degrees of interpretation that eventually costs Licensors significant money and business relationships. Billions of dollars are lost annually and significant litigation results from poorly thought-out critical financial, monitoring and auditing terms. Unfortunately, these shortcomings are generally not discovered until a royalty audit or in litigation, at which point it's often too late to undo the damage, leaving the licensor with no choice but to accept pennies on the dollar or the inability to terminate a poor agreement.  A typical royalty audit discovers monetary underreporting discrepancies in excess of 20% often due to poor license agreement language and monitoring.   This class will cover the most common financial terminology mistakes that occur in almost every license agreement and the importance of selecting the proper royalty audit expert.


Who Should Attend:

• Corporate IP Professionals
• Corporate Licensing Executives
• In-House Counsel
• Business Development Professionals
• Technology Transfer Professionals
• Attorneys
• Consultants
• Academics
• Students

Learning Objectives

• Learn the most common financial terminology mistakes that occur in almost every license agreement
•  Understand the importance of selecting the proper royalty audit expert

Intellectual property laws are constantly changing.  This litigation update will cover a sample of patent damage statistics from PwC's 2011 Study of Patent Litigation Damages.  The study covers success rates, median damages - cuts for jury vs. bench, NPE vs. practicing entity, and by districts and industries.  Additionally, key Federal Circuit and Supreme Court decisions in 2010 and YTD 2011 in the IP law area will be reviewed as well as a view from an in-house IP counsel’s chair on trends in IP disputes, including multi-defendant cases, popular venues, and non-practicing-entities.

Although most of us subscribe to the win-win negotiation philosophy, IP negotiations are not always so collegial. There are many 'dirty little tricks' that we have seen - and have probably used, too! These negotiation tactics often raise ethical concerns which will be examined in this Webinar, along with different variations of these strategies, considering the ethical issues that each raises. The attendee will be presented with various IP negotiation tactics, some of which might be called "dirty tricks", and will be given considerations in planning a response. Additionally, the Webinar will present basis rules of ethics for IP negotiations, with a primary focus on the LES code of Ethics, as well as contract law considerations. Attendees will sharpen their insights into negotiation tactics while gaining a better understanding of ethical conduct for licensing professionals.

• Corporate IP Professionals
• Corporate Licensing Executives
• In-House Counsel
• Business Development Professionals
• Technology Transfer Professionals
• Attorneys
• Consultants
• Academics
• Students

Intellectual property always seems to be in the news recently, either because of big deals, or big lawsuits.  Clearly, the focus is on value growth and value capture for the businesses involved, but what about value preservation.  On the flip-side of negotiated transactions and settlements are the vulnerabilities associated with what may be your company's most valuable assets:  your intellectual property.  IP risks are also in the news:  just the number of hacking stories alone implies a new level of subtle, systematic, sophisticated organized theft of IP that can lead to loss of competitive advantage, reputation and market value.

At our May Webinar Wednesday, you'll hear our panel discuss their opinions around some real IP risks and management strategies in a number of risk areas such as cyber-fraud, outsourcing/off-shoring, cloud computing, and licensing.

Who Should Attend:

    * Corporate IP Professionals
    * Corporate Licensing Executives
    * In-House Counsel
    * Business Development Professionals
    * Technology Transfer Professionals
    * Attorneys
    * Consultants
    * Academics
    * Students

What if is was possible to…

1.     Invent on-demand?

2.     Know what to invent next?

3.     Develop a structured map of all patentable opportunities?

Over the last 65 years, the ability to achieve these objectives has become a reality.  Foundational work done by Generich Altshuller, creator of TRIZ (The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) plus more recent advancements have made these tasks possible.   Decades of research has resulted in a comprehensive collection of principles defining how people throughout history invented and solved complex problems.  Evolutionary principles and unique processes have been developed that support the analysis of past data such as experiences, literature, prior art and patents to reveal new opportunities and allow corporations to compete, protect and control IP in new ways.  This presentation will focus on an introduction to Structured Innovation and TRIZ, a process for identifying paradigm shifting invention opportunities and a method for mapping out and spinning off an array of patents rapidly.

Who Should Attend:

• Corporate IP Professionals
• Corporate Licensing Executives
• In-House Counsel
• Business Development Professionals
• Technology Transfer Professionals
• Attorneys
• Consultants
• Academics
• Students

Aside from reaching an agreement on the payment terms of a license agreement, the most difficult issues to resolve in order to close a deal involve the allocation and management of risk.  This workshop will discuss several challenging risk-related issues for IP dealmakers, such as:

• indemnities and exceptions
• limitations on liability
• warranties and disclaimers
• control over IP enforcement
• ownership and residual knowledge in R&D agreements
• balancing business concerns with  "getting the deal done". 

Examples will be taken from actual deals, primarily in the high tech sector.  However, the general principles discussed are relevant and transferable to other technology sectors.

This program focuses on the marketing of the Olympic brands and, in particular, Games Brands and deal with unique branding, licensing and ambush marketing issues and much, much more including specific issues and examples that arose in Vancouver in the licensing and enforcement arena relating to the Games marks.  As well as dealing with the Vancouver Games, the session will speak to the upcoming Summer Games in London, England as to who to contact for licensing and sponsorship opportunities.  

Licensing in 2011 brought new and unique challenges due to a variety of changes in law, policy, and procedures. This webinar, modeled after Mr. Levine's annual Top 10 Court Decisions workshop, highlights recent changes in U.S. law, and changes in U.S. government antitrust policy, all of which will impact licensing in 2011 generally, and the drafting of clauses for license agreements specifically. The webinar also provides an overview of potential changes that are on the horizon in connection with pending U.S. patent law reform and in connection with pending cases in the U.S. Courts.

This webinar focuses on best practices associated with trademark licensing - from both the Licensor's and Licensee's perspective.

A review of trademark license key terms and provisions will be made, with focus on sub-licensing, trademark protection and compliance monitoring. Both standard and 'not-so-standard' approaches at reaching satisfactory resolution will be presented.

Establishing and maintaining strong relationships while negotiating and executing the license agreement is critical in trademark licensing. Equally important is continuing to build the relationship during the license activation phase - after the deal is done. Tips for establishing, maintaining and building strong relationships after the contract is signed will be presented including a 'Do's and Don'ts' of licensor/licensee interactions.

In their January 2011 Uniloc v Microsoft decision, a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals panel decided that "the 25 percent rule of thumb is a fundamentally flawed tool for determining a baseline royalty rate in a hypothetical negotiation".  In an industry that has accepted the 25% rule for more than a decade, this is a fundamental change.  Did the Federal Circuit get it right?  What impact will this ruling have for tax valuations, licensing discussions, and litigation damages cases?  What will this mean for the licensing executive?  LES (USA & Canada) President Mike Lasinski will lead a panel in a discussion of the decision and its impact.  The panel consists of Mohan Rao, Managing Director, Navigant Economics; Justin A. Nelson, Partner, Susman Godfrey LLP; and John Jarosz, Managing Principal, Analysis Group, who co-authored the paper on the 25% rule cited extensively by the Federal Circuit.

Revenue reporting for IP licenses may sound simple, but most royalty auditors say underreporting is common. Auditing may seem like the obvious solution, but royalty audits don’t always go smoothly. If you have ever considered calling an audit, this new webinar is recommended. Frequently asked questions about royalty auditing and royalty auditors will be addressed, and best practices for your license compliance program will be presented. Topics include auditing rights language, audit triggers, auditing processes, auditing risks, sources of errors and fraud, findings reports, and claim dispute resolution. The discussion will include how and why reporting error or fraud occurs, and ways to prevent and correct it.  Participants will improve their ability to collect all the revenue earned by their IP assets.