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PIUG is pleased to announce the preliminary program (subject to change as speakers are added) the Plenary Sessions for the PIUG 2025 Annual Conference. Details for Workshops will be listed on a separate web page by Mid-March. When planning your trip to the conference, please keep the following events in mind so that you do not miss out on a valuable opportunity.
PLEASE BE ADVISED to save significantly on PIUG conference registration fees, BECOME A MEMBER of PIUG first by going to the PIUG Membership page.
Technical Sessions - Sunday through Wednesday
PIUG would like to inform all conference attendees that the use of photographic or recording devices of any kind to create recordings of the conference proceedings including the technical program and workshops is strictly prohibited. This includes recordings by the audience for personal use.
Please note that the speakers listed below may change if circumstances arise. Accordingly, please monitor this web page for updated information.
Abstracts and Biographies Keynote Address: Inventing, Creating, and Trusting Again: Fortifying the IP System for a New Era of Innovation (Megan Carpenter, Dean, UNH, Franklin Pierce Law School)
Intellectual property systems are at a crossroads. In an era where AI generates inventions and art, where deep learning models absorb vast troves of copyrighted content, and where questions of ownership, authorship, and validity proliferate, the core principles of IP—especially patents and copyright—are being challenged like never before. Confidence in the patent system has declined, not only due to litigation abuse or low-quality filings, but also because the pace of innovation has outstripped the system's ability to adapt. Meanwhile, copyright law is being tested all sides, with foundational concepts like originality and authorship now open questions. Yet amid this uncertainty, IP professionals can help to restore trust. They can be the stewards of innovation intelligence—the ones who ensure the right ideas are protected, that the best patents are pursued, and that the noise doesn't drown out true value. This keynote will explore how we can reinvigorate the IP system through a combination of human expertise and AI tools, how IP professionals can lead in this moment of reinvention, and how we can collectively ensure that our IP framework not only survives but thrives in a rapidly evolving world.
Megan Carpenter has been a thought-leader, lawyer, and professor in intellectual property and innovation for over two decades. She is currently dean of the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, a law school with a core focus in intellectual property. Dean Carpenter is a prolific writer. She has written multiple book chapters and published works in places such as the Hastings Law Journal, Fordham Law Review, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, and the Yale Journal of Human Rights and Development, and in popular media, such as the New York Times, NPR, IAM, Chicago Tribune, Salon, and Smithsonian Magazine. She edited the volume “Evolving Economies: The Role of Law in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.” Dean Carpenter is a transformational leader. Under her tenure, UNH Franklin Pierce has increased enrollment by over 230%, increased revenue 3x, and increased fundraising 5x. Dean Carpenter was named one of the Most Influential People in Legal Education by National Jurist. She is a global strategist, having built partnerships and programs across six continents. Her talent for driving initiatives from concept to execution has had a demonstrable positive impact. Most recently she led the creation of the Hybrid JD in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Information Law, a national award-winning program and the first hybrid program for a specialized area of the law in the US. The program is designed to make legal education accessible to working professionals in IP-intensive industries. It has experienced strong growth year-over-year since its inception in 2019, and the program was recognized as one of the top law school innovators nationwide by Bloomberg. Carpenter is a community-minded executive and has organized legal support for economic development and innovation in New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia. Dean Carpenter practiced law at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (now K&L Gates), where she represented clients on technology-focused legal issues, and at Bruning Law, a boutique IP and entertainment law firm.Patent Family Development: Policy Considerations for and against Continuation Applications (Jeff Morton, PhD, Partner, IP Practice Grp, Haynes Boone)
The USPTO recently withdrew a proposed change to the rules on terminal disclaimers, under which invalidation of one patent in a family with terminal disclaimers would automatically invalidate all other patents subject to the same disclaimers. The proposal aroused strong passions, with powerful voices on both sides of the debate. On one side were advocates for innovation, concerned about the effects such a change would have in an era when the most valuable form of property is intellectual property. On the other side were advocates of free trade hoping for harmonization of US patent law with that of Europe and Canada, as well as citizen groups and medical insurers frustrated by what they saw as Big Pharma’s gaming the system to evergreen branded drugs at the expense of generic drug companies and patients. This talk presents both sides of a heated debate, explaining why rules that favor one desirable outcome, such as a thriving biotechnology startup sector, may be detrimental to another desirable outcome, such as affordable drug therapies – and vice versa. We then present a range of proposals that would address the concerns of both sides, while minimizing harm to the other.
Jeff Morton's practice focuses on all aspects of intellectual property law, with a particular focus on patent strategy in the life sciences industry. Jeff has extensive experience in life science technologies ranging from genomics and immunology, through to crop science innovations. In addition to his patent practice, Jeff maintains an active trademark and commercial law practice that is largely focused on developing value for his client’s valuable intellectual property assets. He has been recognized in Best Lawyers in America, Woodward/White, Inc., IAM Patent 1000, IAM Media, and IAM Strategy 300, IAM Media. Speed Networking: how to elevator pitch yourself (PIUG Hosted)
TBD Panel Discussion: Seeing the future of patent searching through the past (Jim Brown, Sr.Product Specialist IP, FizK)
I would like to propose an extended talk/mini-event for the PIUG Annual. I think the PIUG should celebrate its past at this year’s conference. Invite all of the important people of the PIUG’s history to be part of a panel. People like Edlyn Simmons, Sandra Unger, Heidi Stone, Suzanne Robins, Don Walter, Elyse Turner, etc. I will probably be attending (don’t I always???) and would willingly host the event. I would also be willing to give a short presentation on my 40 years in this business – proposed title – Hello, I must be going – my 40 years in the patent world. Or Seeing the future of patent searching through the past. As those people would be part of a panel, they would not have to pay to attend. I would be willing to coerce some of those retirees to come out of hiding and join us. And I think promoting this may entice others to attend, if for no other reason than to see their friends one last time.
TBD CPC Harmonization and AI (Rinaldi Rada, Co-Founder, CPS Patent International)
Harmonization in CPC is necessary to achieve high-quality data for advancing AI search tools. CPC, a collaboration between EPO and USPTO, has been in use for over 13 years. Currently, more than 38 patent offices utilize CPC, which remains vital for efficient patent searches. Despite concerns that AI might render traditional classification tools obsolete, major patent offices, including USPTO, EPO, KIPO, and CNIPA, still invest heavily in classifying in CPC. However, after 13 years, significant discrepancies in classification practices persist among these offices. This lack of harmonization undermines the CPC's value, as the true standards for classification remain unclear. Harmonization among key contributors to CPC is crucial for obtaining maximum benefit of its investments in classification. Additionally, there is great effort in the development of AI tools to improve the quality and efficiency of classification and search. The success of these tools depends on the quality of the information upon which they are built. Excessive noise or polluted information could hinder the achievement of accurate results of using AI in search. This audience can play an important role in persuading the USPTO and EPO to create a global classification standard, maximizing the benefits of AI tools.
Former Technology Center Group Director at the USPTO, Mr. Rada was responsible for the management of patent examining groups in the fields of transportation, construction, electronic commerce, and agriculture. Mr. Rada led USPTO’s transition from the US Patent Classification System to CPC, including the training of patent examiners and the development of related IT examination, search, and classification tools. He also led teams in the formation of the Search and Classification Examiner position and USPTO’s transfer and search assistance and classification quality assurance programs. Mr. Rada has experience collaborating with other intellectual property offices in achieving common goals, improving processes, and IT toolsrelated to classification scheme management, quality, and examiner collaboration. He worked 32 years at the USPTO where he started as a patent examiner and then as a supervisory patent examiner in mechanical and manufacturing technologies before becoming group director. Patents and FTO in a non-profit world (Monica Gallas, Sr. IP Analyst, Gates Agricultural Innovations)
One in four people on the planet will live in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, yet yields on the continent are only 15-20 percent of those in similar growing regions. Despite this, conventional research and development often neglects the priorities and needs of smallholders if the risk is too high or the road to commercialization too uncertain. At Gates Ag One, one of the tools that we utilize to address this challenge is intellectual property. In addition to leveraging off-patent technology, performing intellectual property freedom-to-operate analyses is essential for identifying patents that protect foundational IP that can be used to help de-risk the development and delivery of agricultural technology to smallholder farmers. Our Global Access approach ensures that innovations previously limited to high-income countries can be available to the farmers who are most impacted by climate change and have the greatest need for climate-resilient crops.
Monica Gallas is currently a Senior Intellectual Property Analyst at Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One), a non-profit organization focused on serving the unmet needs of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia with the latest agricultural technology. Prior to moving into the non-profit sector, she spent over a decade working in intellectual property in the agriculture industry. What’s In Force? Approaches for Finding Expiration and Extension Information (John Zabilski)
One vital step in a Freedom-to-Operate search is to determine what published patents you have found are still -in-force. Finding in-force patents includes identifying:
Learn which search resources have indicators for active/inactive status and how to search for this information on publicly accessible platforms. Also learn how to focus on specific legal events to identify if a particular patent is still in-force.
Previously John held several positions for over 40 years at Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS, including indexing (database building), development (database creation), training and consulting on how to search for patent information. John has provided onsite and online training in the agrochemical, biotech, chemical, pharma and polymer areas for many organizations including 3M, AbbVie, Corteva, Dow, Eli Lilly, Lubrizol, P&G, Pfizer and multiple universities. Some of his personal milestones include training at 10 patent offices around the world, contributing to presentations for the WIPO Technology Innovation Support Centers (TISC), and presenting at AALL, ACS, PIUG, SLA and world online meetings including the China Patent Annual Conference in Beijing. John is a Registered U.S. Patent Agent and a Qualified Patent Information Professional (QPIP). Return to TopPotential Pitfalls in Patent Searching (Martha Yates, Sr. Principal Information Scientist, Bayer)
How hard can it be to do patent searching you ask? I maintain that the mark of a professional searcher is knowledge about what is and is NOT in the databases that you are searching. I will discuss many ways in which data can be wrong or misleading, how you can be doomed in looking for legal status information, and tips for doing assignee searching. I will also talk about some other traps that you can fall into and share some fun examples with you. I hope that the audience can share some other fun examples as well. Martha Yates is a Senior Principal Information Scientist and Science Fellow for Bayer CropScience. She is a long-time member and board member of PIUG. She is a registered QPIP and a registered US patent agent. She is currently the chair of the IPO patent search committee. Bridge the Gap Between IP & R&D (Ken Ropke, Director of Corporate Accounts, Minesoft)
Learn how to leverage AI-powered workflows to quickly identify relevant prior art and streamline routine tasks, freeing up time for more strategic analysis. Discover practical techniques to eliminate Excel silos and improve collaboration between IP and R&D, enabling more informed decision-making. Gain valuable insights into how a deeper understanding of your company’s IP position can drive innovation and business success. TBA Activity Session: How to Run a Meeting (PIUG Hosted)
TBD What Not to Do With Your Valuable Intellectual Property (Stephen Adams, Managing Director, Magister, Ltd.)
History is littered with examples of when a competitive advantage has been either squandered or effectively exploited as a result of decisions made about the protection of innovations. Hindsight often enables us to see what went wrong, or “what might have been”. Some eventual outcomes were unavoidable, being overtaken by unforeseen – or unforeseeable – events, but in others, mistakes were made in choosing the appropriate IP strategy, which contributed to significant losses. We will consider a range of examples from 200 B.C. to the present day, reminding us that the same decision points are still of importance in IP management in the 21 st century.
Stephen Adams is the managing director of Magister Ltd., a UK-based consultancy specialising in patents information. Mr. Adams is a Qualified Patent Information Professional (number 20190044100092) and holds a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Bristol and an M.Sc. in Information Science from City University, London. He was the representative for UK user groups on the information sub-committee of the Standing Advisory Committee to the EPO (SACEPO/PDI) for many years, as well as contributing to the work of the Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS) and the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Patents and Related Matters (CPRM). He is the author of three editions of “Information Sources in Patents”, the most recent being published in September 2020 by Walter de Gruyter KG. He received the IPI Award in 2012 for outstanding contribution to patent information. Unconventional Strategies for Effective Invalidity Searches (Sirin Achanta, Managing Director, SciTech Patent Art & Chief Operating Officer, LitAgility)
Finding the right prior art can make or break a patent invalidation effort, yet traditional search strategies often fall short—especially when facing patents that have already withstood rigorous examination. Non-patent literature (NPL) offers a powerful alternative, but its vast, unstructured nature makes effective searching a major challenge. This presentation will showcase real-world case studies where unconventional search strategies uncovered critical invalidating prior art. Attendees will gain insights into AI/ML-powered web crawling techniques for mining hard-to-find NPL, as well as the impact of close attorney-analyst collaboration in identifying prior art compelling enough for legal arguments. By exploring these innovative approaches, patent professionals will learn how to strengthen their invalidity searches and improve litigation and licensing outcomes.
Dr. Srin Achanta brings over 35 years of expertise at the intersection of business, technology, and intellectual property. In 2002, he founded SciTech Patent Art, one of India’s pioneering IP analytics firms, which serves Fortune 500 companies across the U.S., Japan, and Europe. He also serves as the Chief Operating Officer of LitAgility LLC and CaseSight LLC, two Boston-based patent litigation consulting firms with a 25-year legacy of supporting attorneys in high-stakes IP disputes. His expertise includes patent analytics for live litigation cases and the development of advanced software tools for patent litigators. With deep industry knowledge and a passion for innovation, Dr. Achanta continues to shape the future of patent analytics and litigation support. Dr. Achanta holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from the University of Michigan, with a career spanning engineering, management consulting, and global marketing at The Procter & Gamble Company, Booz & Company (now Strategy&) and Honeywell International. Prior Art for Prior Art’s Sake (Ron Kaminecki, Kaminecki IP LLP)
Though the definition of prior art remains about the same as it has been, the implementation of it has changed over the years and throughout different jurisdictions. However, earlier publications earlier than the priority date remain the gold standard though some exceptions can be found. This talk will discuss some exceptions or interpretations that could prove to be exceptional in patent prosecution.
Ron Kaminecki has been searching patents and advising researchers for over forty years, having worked for companies such as IIT Research Institute, Lockheed Missiles and Space, Dialog, Knight-Ridder Information, Abbott Laboratories, Thomson-Reuters, ProQuest and Questel, always in the area of patent information. He has a BS in Chemistry, an MS in Computer Science and a JD with a Certificate in Patent Law and is a Qualified Patent Information Professional. He is a US patent attorney, has worked as an expert witness, is an inventor for a patent on a patent prosecution system, is a co-author of NISO standard Z39.58 for an online search language and serves as Director-at-Large for the Patent Information User Group. Currently, he teaches patent searching at DePaul University Law School and the University of New Hampshire Law School. He is Vice Chair of PIUG and is Chair of the QPIP Supervisory Council. |
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