Founder and Principal, Johnson-IP Strategy & Consulting
Philip S. Johnson is Founder and Principal of Johnson-IP Strategy & Consulting. He previously served as Senior Vice President - Law Department and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel of Johnson & Johnson, having joined the corporation in January 2000 after 27 years in private practice. In this position, he managed about 110 patent and trademark attorneys worldwide. Phil is Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Intellectual Property Law Education Foundation, Vice President and President Elect of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and a member of the Board of the Intellectual Property Owners Association Education Foundation (Past President). He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, of the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel (Past President) and of PhRMA’s IP Focus Group (Chair Emeritus). Previously, Phil served as President of INTERPAT.
Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Phil was a senior partner and co-chair of IP litigation at Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia, where he specialized in intellectual property issues affecting major pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer product companies. Phil has served as trial counsel in over 100 patent cases, including over 50 resulting in reported decisions of the federal district courts and/or of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Phil regularly testifies before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on the subject of patent law reform and, more recently, abusive patent litigation. Phil served as a member of Chief Judge Michel’s Advisory Council on Patent Reform, and was recognized in the Congressional Record as a member of the Minority Whip’s “Kitchen Cabinet” for the America Invents Act. Thereafter, Phil served as IPO’s representative on the ABA-AIPLA-IPO committee of six experts (“COSE”) formed at Director Kappos’ request to propose to the USPTO implementing regulations for the PGR-IPR post-grant proceedings created by the AIA.
Phil co-authored “Compensatory Damages Issues In Patent Infringement Cases, A Pocket Guide for Federal District Court Judges,” published by the Federal Judicial Center, and has served that Center as a faculty member on its IP-related judicial education programming. Phil was also featured in the Landslide Publication March/April 2013 issue. The New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association awarded Phil with its 2013 Jefferson Medal, presented on June 7, 2013.
Phil received his Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude with distinction in biology from Bucknell University, and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where his third year advisor was now-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
Dana Rao is the Vice President of Intellectual Property and Litigation at Adobe Systems. He oversees all aspects of Adobe’s intellectual property and litigation matters, including procuring, licensing, and defending Adobe’s patents, trademarks, and copyrights, and managing all aspects of Adobe’s litigation practice.
Before Adobe, Dana was an Associate General Counsel of Patents at Microsoft Corporation, focusing on their Windows Phone and Xbox patent issues. Dana began his legal career at Fenwick & West, focusing on patent prosecution, licensing, and litigation. Dana received his undergraduate degree from Villanova University in Electrical Engineering, and received his law degree from The George Washington University School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif.
Partner, Fenwick & West LLP
Robert Sachs is President at Robert R. Sachs PC and concentrates his practice on strategic patent counseling and prosecution for software technologies. Bob has extensive experience in developing patent portfolios for companies of all sizes, from startups to multi-nationals.
He is the primary evaluator for standards essential patents on today's most important audio, video, and communications technologies, including 3GPP-LTE, IEEE 802.11, MPEG-4 AAC, DVB-MHP, OCAP, Digital Radio Mondiale, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AMR-WB+, G.711, G.729, AGORA-C, and NFC-IP. He conducts and supervises patent evaluations in US, as well as Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, Mexico and Canada.
One of Bob’s areas of expertise is patentable subject matter: the question of what kinds of inventions are eligible for patent protection, and particularly whether software and life sciences related inventions are patentable. This issue has become the new battleground in the development of the patent law, with several important cases having been recently decided by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While most authors and scholars take a results-oriented approach to this question, Bob instead starts with the first principles of creativity and innovation that drive humans to solve functional problems. From that understanding, software and life sciences inventions are squarely in the domain of what the patent law is designed to protect.
Partner, Fenwick & West LLP
Robert Sachs is President at Robert R. Sachs PC and concentrates his practice on strategic patent counseling and prosecution for software technologies. Bob has extensive experience in developing patent portfolios for companies of all sizes, from startups to multi-nationals.
He is the primary evaluator for standards essential patents on today's most important audio, video, and communications technologies, including 3GPP-LTE, IEEE 802.11, MPEG-4 AAC, DVB-MHP, OCAP, Digital Radio Mondiale, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AMR-WB+, G.711, G.729, AGORA-C, and NFC-IP. He conducts and supervises patent evaluations in US, as well as Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, Mexico and Canada.
One of Bob’s areas of expertise is patentable subject matter: the question of what kinds of inventions are eligible for patent protection, and particularly whether software and life sciences related inventions are patentable. This issue has become the new battleground in the development of the patent law, with several important cases having been recently decided by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While most authors and scholars take a results-oriented approach to this question, Bob instead starts with the first principles of creativity and innovation that drive humans to solve functional problems. From that understanding, software and life sciences inventions are squarely in the domain of what the patent law is designed to protect.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
Professor of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law
Professor Mark F. Schultz joined the faculty in 2003. He teaches and writes primarily in the area of intellectual property.
Professor Schultz is a frequent author and speaker known for his work on the law and economics of the global intellectual property system. In one of his most influential projects, he worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to construct a groundbreaking global trade secret protection index (the TSPI). The TSPI is influencing policy discussions on this cutting-edge topic in capitals around the world. Other recent projects have included an empirical study that quantified for the first time the backlogs in patent offices worldwide, a report on how patented innovation is meeting global health challenges, and the construction of a new global index of copyright strength.
Professor Schultz is an influential voice in public policy debates regarding intellectual property. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on copyright law at the invitation of the House Judiciary Committee and has briefed the staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on trade secret legislation. He speaks frequently around the world about the connection between secure and effective intellectual property rights and flourishing national economies and individual lives, with invitations from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Copyright Office, as well as numerous academic institutions, think tanks, and industry groups. He served as an NGO delegate to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for several years during the WIPO Development Agenda talks. He is also one of the organizers of an ongoing multilateral diplomatic dialogue on best practices in national trade secret laws, and is co-founder of the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
Among the awards and recognition he has received for his scholarship was the School of Law's Outstanding Scholar of the Year award in 2008. He has been a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of Botswana and a visiting professor at DePaul University College of Law.
Professor Schultz graduated with honors from the George Washington University School of Law. Following law school, he was a judicial clerk for the Hon. Daniel M. Friedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and the Hon. Eric G. Bruggink of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Prior to joining academia, he practiced law for a decade, serving as outside general counsel to several tech startups and helping technology companies to expand their businesses and commercialize their intellectual property in dozens of countries. He holds a B.A. in International Economics from George Washington University and has done PhD level coursework in development economics at Southern Illinois University.
He is active in leadership roles in local and national organizations. He has served as chair of the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group and the AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law. He is an officer of the American Bar Association's International IP Committee of the International Law Section and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Trade Secret Law Committee. He currently is chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance.
Professor Schultz teaches Copyright Law, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, and a senior seminar on Intellectual Property and Global Development. He established and directs both the Specialization in Intellectual Property Law and the IP Semester in Practice Externship Program. He also co-founded a Legal Globalization Class, offered every other year, that takes students to South Africa and Botswana after spending a semester learning about the legal system, culture, history, and politics of southern Africa. The popular course is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that introduces students to leading lawyers, judges, government officials, and human rights advocates, taking them from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Gaborone as well as many popular destinations including game reserves, national parks, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Cradle of Humankind.
Associate Professor, Boston College Law School
David Olson is an associate professor and the Faculty Director of the Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He teaches patent law, intellectual property law, antitrust law, and various seminars. His research and writing primarily focus on patents, copyrights, antitrust, and incentives for innovation and competition. Since joining BC Law in 2007, he has been recognized for his teaching excellence and contributions. In 2011, he received the Business & Law Society Faculty Award for Achievement in Business & Law. In 2012, he received the Professor Emil Slizewski Award for Faculty Excellence. For one semester in 2015, Olson served as a visiting professor at Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he conducted research and taught a course on intellectual property.
Olson has published scholarly articles on patent law, copyright law, antitrust, music licensing, and first amendment copyright issues. His writing has been cited in Supreme Court and other legal opinions. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on matters of drug patents, FDA regulation, and antitrust.
The media frequently seeks Olson’s insights and opinions. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters, among others. He has appeared as a guest panelist on WBUR’s Radio Boston, WAMU's Kojo Namdi Show, and Public Radio Canada. His op-eds have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, and The Hill.
Olson came to Boston College from Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, where he conducted research on patent law and litigated copyright fair use impact cases. Before entering academia, Olson practiced law as a patent litigator. He clerked for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Should Congress Amend Section 101 of the Patent Act?
Philip Johnson, Adam Mossoff, Dana S. Rao, Robert Sachs
Intellectual Property Practice Group
This Teleforum addresses whether there is a need to amend Section 101 of the Patent...
Boon or Bane for Technological Innovation?: Software Patents - Podcast
Robert Sachs, Adam Mossoff, Mark F. Schultz, David S. Olson
Intellectual Property Practice Group Podcast
Although pure software patents are only a couple decades old, they have become the focus...