A roundtable of senior in-house counsel - including Mallun Yen of Cisco, John Danforth of Rambus, Doug Luftman of Palm Inc, Peter Detkin of Intellectual Ventures with Mike Jacobs of Morrison & Foerster as moderator - discuss and debate specific proposals for patent reform including the recently proposed Leahy-Hatch bill in the Senate.
Bio
John Danforth
John Claggett Danforth is a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican United States Senator from Missouri.
Peter Detkin
Peter N. Detkin is a co-founder and managing director at Intellectual Ventures where he focuses on a variety of projects relating to intellectual property and invention.
Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Mr. Detkin spent 8 years at Intel Corporation where he was a vice president and assistant general counsel. As assistant general counsel, Mr. Detkin was responsible for managing the Intel patent and licensing departments, including all aspects of prosecution and claims management. In addition, Mr. Detkin managed the litigation and competition policy departments (including antitrust).
Before he joined Intel, Mr. Detkin was an intellectual property partner at the law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati in Palo Alto, Calif. Mr. Detkin was the first patent lawyer hired at this firm and formed the basis of their highly successful intellectual property practice. While at Wilson Sonsini, he had lead or second chair responsibility for a number of high profile litigations, including the seminal computer copyright case Lotus v. Borland.
In addition to his work, Mr. Detkin is the immediate, past president of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, an organization dedicated to providing legal services to low-income children and families, people with mental and developmental disabilities, AIDS patients, and victims of discrimination. Through his extensive involvement with the Foundation over the years, he has worked with others to provide free legal services to nearly tens of thousands of low income and poor families and children through a variety of programs.
Mr. Detkin received his B.S.E.E. with honors in 1982 from the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, and a J.D. in 1985 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a member of the State Bars of California and New York, and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Michael Jacobs
Michael A. Jacobs has concentrated his practice on litigation of high-technology and intellectual property matters. Representing a broad array of clients, his work in several landmark cases has helped to shape the laws governing emerging technologies. He has litigated a wide range of patent, contract, and trade secret disputes in the information technology and life sciences field. He has also handled numerous high-profile arbitrations, several of which involved the interplay between arbitration and court proceedings.
Mr. Jacobs is co-author, with Professor Donald Chisum, of World Intellectual Property Guidebook, United States, published in 1992 by Matthew Bender & Company, New York. Prior to the start of his legal career, Mr. Jacobs held assignments with the United States Foreign Service in Kingston, Jamaica, and Washington, D.C.
Mr. Jacobs joined Morrison & Foerster in 1983 and is a partner in its San Francisco office. He served as co-head of the firm’s intellectual property practice since its founding in 1990 until February 2003. He also served as the firm’s Managing Partner for Operations from 1995 to 1997.
Mr. Jacobs was identified as a top 100 "Super Lawyer" by Northern California Super Lawyers and as a leading intellectual property lawyer by Chambers & Partners . He was also highly recommended by the 2006 PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook in Intellectual Property law. PLC notes Mr. Jacobs as "a highly rated contentious specialist." In addition, Mr. Jacobs is listed in The Best Lawyers in America (2007) as a leader in the field of Intellectual Property law.
Doug Luftman
Doug Luftman is a Senior Attorney of Intellectual Property at Intel Corporation.
Mallun Yen
Mallun Yen is Cisco's director of intellectual property.