Mark Holmes, Founder & CEO, PatentBridge; Silicon Valley Chapter, Former Co-Chair LinkedIn

With over a billion dollars in patent deals under his belt, Mark is the founder and CEO of PatentBridge LLC, a privately held technology development firm specializing in bringing to market select patented technologies covering extraordinary software and Internet-related breakthroughs. He is also the CEO and Co-Founder of RavenWhite Cybersecurity, Inc., selected as one of the top 10 cybersecurity startups worldwide at the RSA Conference. He was a Founder and Executive of Business Development for the DeCaf Co. which for over 20 years attempted to create the world’s first consumer instant decaffeination product. He was also the co-founder of a successful telecommunications startup which sold to a portfolio company of a large state employee pension fund. Mark is an angel investor both as Managing Director of Sand Hill Private Investments and as a Band of Angels member. He has advised such technology savvy entities as Sony, Visa, Applied Materials, University of California at Berkeley and many startups. He lectures nationally on pressing issues facing tech startup. In the past few years, he has spoken nationally over 50 times for Renaissance Weekend, International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), Washington State Patent Law Association, Oregon Patent Law Association, Licensing Executive Society (LES), PLI and other organizations. He holds an engineering degree from Brown, is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), IEEE Software Society and wrote the book PATENT LICENSING AND SELLING: STRATEGY, NEGOTIATION & FORMS. He earned his law degree from Tulane Law School.

Efrat Kasznik, President, Foresight Valuation Group LinkedIn

Efrat is an IP valuation and strategy expert with more than 25 years of consulting experience assisting clients with the valuation, strategic management and monetization of their intellectual property and technologies. She is president of Foresight Valuation Group LLC – a Silicon Valley-based IP valuation and litigation consulting firm – as well as a start-up advisory firm. Efrat is also an appointed lecturer on IP management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), as well as a lecturer in accounting at Stanford Law School. She also lectures on IP issues at the GSB’s various local and international executive education programs. Efrat specializes in analyzing IP and technology portfolios for a range of business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, financial reporting, technology commercialization and business liquidations. She frequently testifies as an expert witness in legal cases involving damages or valuations of intellectual property and start-ups, as well as in high net worth divorce cases involving the valuation of intangible assets and technology startups. Efrat has been listed on the IAM 300 list of World Leading IP Strategists every year since 2013. She is actively involved in leadership roles with LES USA-Canada, where she currently serves as a board member, in addition to serving as Chair of the LES Silicon Valley chapter.

Kerry Kimes, Senior Business Decvelopment Director, Rambus Inc.

Since joining Rambus in 2013, Kerry has lead dozens of licensing deals with many of the largest semiconductor companies, sustaining a licensing program with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual billings. He also involved in managing the foundation of that licensing program, a patent portfolio with fundamental innovations in semiconductor memory, high-speed interfaces, and security. Prior to Rambus, Kerry worked for Dolby Laboratories where he was responsible for the business and licensing strategy with Dolby’s semiconductor partners. Kerry holds a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Michael Pierantozzi, Principal/Owner, Andiamo Associates, LLC LinkedIn

Based in Silicon Valley, Michael is a technology and intellectual property (Tech/IP) entrepreneur, strategist and transaction expert. Andiamo Associates is a management consulting firm that specializes in Tech/IP business catalyzing and monetizing matters. Previously, Michael was responsible for strategic business development, including sales, acquisitions, and licensing for the IP Licensing group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Previously, Michael held executive leadership positions at Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) including HPE, Intellectual Ventures (IV), IPotential, and an IP transaction data services startup that he co-founded. Since 2009, Michael has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine in their IAM 300 rankings as one of the “World’s Leading Intellectual Property Strategists”. He is a frequent speaker at Tech/IP industry events in the US, Europe, and Asia, and has delivered IP management seminars at Stanford University.

Jeff Redman, Redman Disputes & Investigations Group LinkedIn

Jeff has forty years of experience in forensic accounting, royalty compliance analysis and calculating damages in commercial litigation. Jeff has provided consulting and expert witness services in many types of projects, including royalty compliance audits, product liability, insurance claims, construction claims, partnership disputes, breach of contract, intellectual property infringement, business interruption, business failure analysis, antitrust (including below-cost pricing – California BPC Section 17043), employment matters, internal investigations, and fraud investigations. Jeff teaches forensic accounting and damages classes to PhD and Master’s degree accounting students at several major universities. Jeff also teaches MCLE approved courses on Royalty Compliance Analyses and Introduction to Accounting and Commercial Damages through the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, the State Bar of California, LES, the Marin County Bar Association, and the Bar Association of San Francisco. For many years, Jeff has served as Treasurer for the Licensing Executives Society Silicon Valley Chapter and is a member of its Advisory Board. For over ten years, Jeff served on the Board of Directors for Bread and Roses as the Treasurer and then the Chair.

Kent Richardson, Partner, Richardson Oliver Law Group LinkedIn

Kent counsels clients on a variety of patent and business matters, including patent buying, selling, licensing, valuation, prosecution, and operations. He provides data driven advice using his firm’s proprietary database of patent market information covering more than 230,000 patent assets. He has licensing and marketing patent portfolio experience, resulting in more than $600 million worth of patent license bookings. Kent has served as an expert witness on patent monetization and licensing practices in UK and US cases. Before founding ROL Group, Kent was general manager of ThinkFire Services USA, Ltd’s Silicon Valley office. He has worked in various senior management roles with growth businesses such as Senior Vice President of Business Affairs at Sezmi, Managing Director at Constellation Capital, Vice President of Intellectual Property at Rambus and General Counsel at Numerical Technologies. He was also a private practice attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Kent has over 40 published articles and has lectured on patent strategy, intellectual property, and related business issues at Stanford, Santa Clara, Center for Intellectual Property, IPBC, and LES. He is a member of the California Bar, and a US Patent and Trademark Office registered patent attorney. Kent holds five US patents. He has a JD and a BSc in computer engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada.

Joseph Yang, Tech & IP Transactions Partner, PatentEsque Law Group LLP LinkedIn

Joe is a partner at PatentEsque Law Group, LLP, specializing in tech/patent transactions & strategic partnerships. He has led hundreds of deals worth tens of billions of dollars for IT, electronics, entertainment, consumer, healthcare, automotive, manufacturing & energy clients. Joe is especially active in SEP patent licensing, cross-industry deals & U.S./Japan deals. He is also an expert witness in high stakes litigations involving patents, licensing, and strategic alliances. Joe is a long-time Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, and chair of 3 nationwide licensing conferences at PLI. He has developed landmark corporate patent portfolios, worked on 100+ M&A deals, overseen complex patent litigation, and served as an arbitrator. Joe was formerly General Counsel of Cryptography Research and handled its IP licensing (10+ billion devices/year) and eventual M&A ($400M+). He also co-founded and later led the IP Strategy & Transactions practice in the Silicon Valley office of Skadden, Arps. Joe is profiled by SuperLawyers, and in various Intellectual Asset Management experts’ guides (IP Strategy, Patent Professionals, and Global Leaders). He has also authored book chapters, and been cited by courts & law reviews. In his early career, Joe was a research engineer in the aerospace and energy industries.

Michael Zachary, Partner, Bunsow De Mory LLP LinkedIn

As a partner at Bunsow De Mory, Michael focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation and licensing, and regularly represents clients in patent infringement, trade secret, trademark and other intellectual property litigation cases. He counsels clients on a variety of technology and intellectual property agreements, including design and development, manufacturing and supply, product evaluation, and patent and trademark license agreements. He has represented large, mid-size, and start-up companies based in the United States, Japan and Europe, including Volkswagen, Bradium, Skype, Amazon, Wacom, PRISM Pharma and Boston Scientific. In 2016 and 2017, he was recognized as a California “IP Star” by Managing Intellectual Property.