Global Patent Litigation FORUM

Jochen is managing partner of Finnegan’s Munich office. He is one of the rare lawyers in Germany admitted as an attorney at law, a German patent attorney, and a European patent attorney. Jochen has almost 20 years of experience in patent litigation proceedings. He has represented clients in patent litigation proceedings in all major technical fields, including mechanics, electronics, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, chemistry, and biotechnology. Jochen is named as an IP Star in Germany by Managing Intellectual Property.

Judge O'Grady is a recently retired U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to his appointment in 2007, Judge O'Grady served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2003 to 2007. Prior to joining the bench, Judge O'Grady was a partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP in Washington D.C. from 1992 to 2003. He also served as an Assistant Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia from 1982 to 1986 before becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, where he served from 1987 to 1992. Judge O'Grady received his undergraduate degree from Franklin and Marshall College and his law degree from the George Mason University School of Law.

Ronny Thomas is the Presiding Judge of the Düsseldorf Local Division and of the panel of judges there. He has also been a member of the Presidium of the Unified Patent Court since November 2022. In this capacity, he has been directly involved in the development of the Court. Prior to joining the UPC, he was for many years a member of one of the patent divisions of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (Court of Appeal), most recently as Deputy Presiding Judge. Ronny has lectured extensively on the latest developments in German and European patent law and their practical implications for practice. He is also the author of several publications on patent law.

Dr Rainer Friedrich serves as Director Global IP in the field of hematology at the international biotechnological company CSL Behring (Marburg, Germany). He has been appointed to the Unified Patent Court in June 2023 as a technically qualified judge with a focus on biochemistry. Dr Friedrich is also a European Patent Attorney, with 20 years' experience in private IP practice, inter alia as a partner of a leading Munich patent law firm. He has acted on behalf of numerous pharma and biotech clients in a wide range of cases inter alia relating to therapeutic antibodies, stem cells and second medical uses. Dr Friedrich gives regular lectures at the applied sciences university MCI (Innsbruck, Austria) and publishes in IP journals such as Mitteilungen der deutschen Patentanwälte. He holds a summa cum laude doctorate degree in biochemistry awarded by Technische Universität München (Germany). His PhD thesis in protein crystallography of coagulation factors was supervised by Nobel Prize laureate Robert Huber and led to a highly recognized research article in the renowned journal Nature.

Thomas Dreiser is a German qualified lawyer and working for Huawei in Munich. He is responsible for Huawei's European patent licensing and patent litigation projects. He focuses on Standard Essential Patents in the telecommunications sector and all FRAND related issues. Prior to joining Huawei, Thomas worked as an external attorney specializing in patent litigation, IP and IT law, and he, inter alia, represented a company in one of the largest German SEP litigation campaigns in the telecommunications sector in recent years. He holds law degrees from the Universities of Munich, Duesseldorf and Jena, and he has more than 10 years of experience in the field of IP and patent law. Thomas also teaches IP law at the University of Weimar.

Charlie is Intellectual Property Counsel with Robert Bosch LLC in Farmington Hills, Michigan. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School in 2009, he started his career in the IP Litigation department of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago. In 2011, he moved back to his hometown of Metro Detroit and joined the IP Litigation department of Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. In 2016, he transitioned to an in-house role with Robert Bosch LLC. Prior to attending law school, Charlie studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan College of Engineering and worked as a digital hardware engineer at National Instruments in Austin, Texas.

Dr Sabrina Duschner is Vice President Patent Litigation Strategy at Fresenius Kabi, a global healthcare company. Her team focuses on risk assessment and minimisation strategies for the pharmaceutical and clinical nutrition sectors, with an emphasis on direct representation in opposition and appeal proceedings before the EPO. Dr Duschner has worked in intellectual property since 2007, including in the patent departments of Procter & Gamble and Merz Pharmaceuticals. She studied at the University of Mainz, obtained her doctorate in the field of the physical chemistry of polymers and has been an European Patent Attorney since 2012.

Dr Markus Gruber is a Swiss and European Patent Attorney and has been working for Novartis for over 20 years, since 2022 as a Head of IP for Solid Tumors and Radioligand Therapy. Prior to that, he worked as Global Franchise Head Targeted Oncology, R&D IP. Dr Gruber has acquired a diploma for patent litigation in Europe and holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from ETH Zurich.

Zhengquan is since 2022 3M’s Director and Assistant Chief IP Counsel, his responsibilities include managing IP enforcement for the company in Great China Area. Before he joined 3M in 2018, he worked as an IP litigator in different law firms. He holds a Master of Law in IP Law from the National University of Singapore.

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As Merck Group's Head of Patents and Scientific Services, Kathrin is also responsible for coordinating the pharmaceutical company's global patent litigation disputes. She is a European Patent Attorney and a European Patent Litigator.

Joachim is a member of BOSCH's global IP expert team and is responsible for enforcing intellectual property rights, copyrights, and trade secrets. In this context, he handles proceedings worldwide and also attends trade shows in several jurisdictions to enforce the rights of the BOSCH Group. Joachim has been active in IP litigation for over 22 years now, during which he has handled proceedings in several European countries, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, and China.

Careen Shannon joined ASML's Legal & Compliance department in 2018. She is ASML's Head of Litigation, Investigations & Regulatory, a legal expertise team that deals with topics ranging from IP litigation and cyber security incidents to competition law and product safety. She is a Dutch qualified attorney. Before joining ASML, she worked as an IP lawyer and patent litigator for over 17 years.

Ralf is the Head of European Patent Litigation at Google. He manages Google's patent litigation docket in Europe, including contentious cases before the national courts and the Unified Patent Court. He is also a lecturer in patent law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Xiaowu "Emil" Zhang is Huawei's Head of European IP Department. With his more than 17 years with Huawei, Emil leads Huawei's various IP practices, including complicated overseas IP disputes resolution, patent and technology licensing, business cooperation, as well as IP strategic and portfolio planning.

Celine is a first chair trial lawyer in patent cases in district courts and the International Trade Commission. She has defeated claims amounting to millions of dollars in damages, saved products from exclusion from the market, and obtained numerous dismissals when aggressors were forced to give up after insurmountable hurdles. The American Lawyer has touted her wins for the best known computer and telecom companies. She was lead counsel for Mercedes Benz in multiple patent infringement litigations in district courts and the ITC accusing auto, nav., and media technologies and for one of the world's most valuable telecom and computing companies in patent litigations, including wins in district court and the ITC. Celine has a technical background in electrical engineering. She is the head of Hogan Lovells' IPMT practice in the Americas.

Mr. Gramenopoulos is a partner in Finnegan, Henderson's Washington, DC office. He has more than two decades of experience assisting domestic and international clients in the electrical and computer technology fields. Mr. Gramenopoulos is an accomplished patent litigator and strategic IP advisor, handling complex and high-stakes patent matters both in and outside of the courtroom and before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Recognized by The Legal500 U.S. and IAM Patent 1000, he is the lead author of the acclaimed international treatise, Global Patent Litigation: How and Where to Win, published by Bloomberg Law.

Francois specialises in patent work which involves patent litigation in various sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemistry, telecommunications, IT aviation, and optics. He advises on licensing and transactional matters as well as tax-related issues (IP Box with the assistance of tax lawyers) and ownership issues (employees' invention and claim for recovering ownership pf a patent). Francios is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court.

Lionel Lavenue is a partner in the firm’s Reston, Virginia office. His practice focuses on patent trial litigation, including 19 bench or jury trials, and on creating and managing large patent portfolios. With experience in over 200 patent cases, he has managed or served as first chair in numerous district court litigations, including more than 60 cases in the E.D. Texas, almost a dozen patent infringement cases and/or matters under Section 1498(a) in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, more than a dozen disputes under Section 337 before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and multiple arbitrations. Lionel has particular insight into patent disputes involving international discovery under Section 1782. He has been involved in more than a dozen granted 1782 proceedings throughout the US, all with 100% grant rate. Lionel’s broad client base spans an array of industries from aerospace to automotive to financial services to medical devices. He currently leads the firm’s Aerospace, Aviation, and Unmanned Aerial Systems industry group.

Elliot has been advising Global companies on IP strategies for almost 26 years, the last 16 of these from Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, where he currently lives and works. He specialises in China patent and trade secret litigation. He represents Europe's leading companies in enforcing their patents and utility models and over the last 7 years or so has developed a reputation for defending them against patent infringement lawsuits brought by Chinese competitors.

Kara Specht focuses on patent litigation before U.S. district courts, the International Trade Commission (ITC), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She has been recognized by World Intellectual Property Review as a Trailblazer, and at the 2023 Women in Business Law Awards, which recognizes leading women practitioners from over 30 practice areas, she was shortlisted for the Intellectual Property Rising Stars award. Kara currently co-leads Finnegan FORWARD (Focused on Raising Women's Advancement, Representation, and Development), the firm's women's business initiative, in addition to leading Finnegan's LGBTQ+ Affinity Group. Kara's practice covers a wide range of electronic and electrical technology areas related to automotive, financial systems, global positioning systems (GPS), semiconductor devices, wireless communications, consumer electronics, and software/computer-implemented methods. She is well-versed in all aspects of patent litigation. Appearing before district courts and the ITC, Kara has experience from both a plaintiff and defendant perspective, ranging from pre-filing planning and strategy, discovery management, and motion practice to offensive and defensive depositions, claim construction, and summary judgment. Through seconding at a leading multi-national technology company, Kara has first-hand insight into corporate litigation procedures and the importance of considering the business impact in developing case strategy.