Changes Among IP Experts In Private Sector, Law Offices And More

Movements at the World Economic Forum, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, along with changes in the academic and private sectors worlds marked the beginning of 2016. The early part of the new year has also brought some changes in the intellectual property divisions of law firms.

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International Organisations

Senior Swedish official Göran Marby was announced on 8 February as the new President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), succeeding Fadi Chehadé. Marby founded technology start-up appGATE, later acquired by Cryptzone, and also served as a Cisco business employee before joining the Swedish telecom regulator (IPW, Copyright Policy, 9 February 2016).

Fadi Chehadé, outgoing President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has joined the World Economic Forum as Senior Advisor to the Executive Chairman. Chehadé formerly served as IBM’s General Manager for Technology Services in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Governments

The US Patent and Trademark Office announced on 14 January the appointment of Molly Kocialski as new Director of the Rocky Mountain Regional USPTO office, in Denver, Colorado. Kocialski previously served as Senior Patent Counsel for Oracle America.

The three other USPTO regional office directors are: Christal Sheppard, Director of the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Office, Hope Shimabuku, Director of the Texas Regional Office, sworn in on 3 January, and John Cabeca, Director of the West Coast Regional Office in Silicon Valley.

Ann Chaitovitz has been appointed Intellectual Property Attache for the Andean Region at US Department of Commerce. Chaitovitz was former Executive Director at Future of Music Coalition.

Todd Reves, former IP Attaché at the Geneva US mission, is now Regional IP Attaché for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean at the US Department of Commerce.

Private Sector

James Greenwood, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, has been elected as the new Chair of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH)’s Board of Directors, for a three-year term. Greenwood succeeds Don Joseph, former CEO and Chairman of BVGH, who remains on the board of directors. BVGH was established in 2004 by then BIO President Carl Feldbaum. BVGH later became independent from BIO. WIPO Re:Search was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization in partnership with BVGH.

Carol Lynch, Global Head of Biopharmaceuticals and Oncology Injectables at Sandoz was appointed Chair of the overall sector group of the European Biosimilar medicines Group (EBG). Klaus Martin, Senior Director at Polpharma Biologics, was appointed Chair of the EBG market access group. Lynch formerly held leadership positions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and Martin previously held global management positions at Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals.

Crescendo Biologics Limited appointed [pdf] Barbara Fleck as Head of Intellectual Property. Fleck, was previously a partner with Marks&Clerk LLP.

NGOs/Academics

Anthony So, who was a professor at Duke University where he directed the Program on Global Health and Technology Access at the Sanford School of Public Policy, has been named director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) and is the inaugural Robert S. Lawrence Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as of 1 January 2016.

Professor Sadulla Karjiker succeeds Professor Owen Dean, who retired as the incumbent of the Anton Mostert Chair of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), at the end of 2015, after a long and distinguished career. Dean was an occasional contributor of opinion pieces to Intellectual Property Watch. Karjiker has been a lecturer in the Faculty of Law since 2008.

Law Offices

Morrison & Foerster announced that Tessa Schwartz became one of the firm’s four firm-wide managing partners. She follows Anna Erickson White, who is returning to her litigation practice after a four-year tenure as managing partner.

Michael Dougherty and Tony Pezzano have joined Hogan Lovells as partners in the Intellectual Property Media and Technology Practice Group. Dougherty and Pezzano were both partners at King & Spalding prior to joining Hogan Lovells, and focused on patent litigation cases in both Federal District Courts throughout the United States and the International Trade Commission (ITC).

William McCabe, Gene Lee, and Martin Gilmore have joined Perkins Coie’s Intellectual Property practice in New York. McCabe and Lee joined as partners and are coming from Ropes & Gray LLP, and Gilmore joined as senior counsel, from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

ENSafrica, a law firm established in several countries in Africa, appointed Mzi Mgudlwa as its new Chief Executive, taking effect from 1March 2016. Mzi has been the firm’s Deputy Chief Executive since 2006. He succeeds Piet Faber, who will continue to serve the firm in a different capacity.

Helen Schweitz has joined Quarles & Brady’s Intellectual Property Practice Group.

Burford Capital is extending [pdf] its litigation finance offering to intellectual property, and hired Justin Daniels as Managing Director to develop and manage the IP offering. Daniels was previously an IP litigation partner at Proskauer Rose.