Special thank you to our speakers. Pictured left to right: Annmarie Levins, Microsoft Corporation; Edna Conway, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Ronald E. Myrick, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP; Patrick J. Coyne, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP and Richard (Dick) Fawcett, Consultant to Finnegan Henderson.

On October 18th, 2005, AeA presented another event in its ongoing International Series, Protecting Your International Intellectual Property.  Held at AeA member company Cisco Systems in Lexington, MA, the event was designed to inform high tech companies about the implications of international intellectual property for both investment and acquisition, IP protection and product licensing strategies. 

Ronald E. Myrick, Partner, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, began the program by reviewing current contrasts in antitrust legislation in the U.S. and Europe, highlighting intellectual property developments using recent court cases and their outcomes. He addressed how the European Commission is the driver of regulations and directives in European legislative affairs and how it also enforces community competition laws.  

Patrick J. Coyne, Partner, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, then provided an overview of trends in Asian IP protection. He focused solely on China since it is the largest and fastest growing Asian market. He stressed that although intellectual property is a modern concept in China, the People's Republic of China has acceded to both the Paris Convention Treaty and TRIPS. He went on to describe the forum and procedure for discovery and enforcement of patent rights in China, and encouraged companies to actively pursue their IP rights there.

After a short break, Edna Conway, Senior Director, discussed how Cisco, through policies, training, online tools and cross-functional cooperation, has built a model to increase awareness of how to protect the company's intellectual property rights. She stressed the importance of diligently reviewing who in the organization has access to what information and how this is being used. Among these, she considered how much information was being disclosed to key suppliers and if the core technology of the company is being commoditized.   View Edna Conway's presentation here.

Annmarie Levins, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation, next outlined how Microsoft deals with piracy and counterfeiting issues. Microsoft has created a worldwide anti-piracy team consisting of more than 300 people to address this growing global problem. She described how these teams are headed by attorneys with backgrounds in prosecution and also include investigators, intelligence analysts, forensic experts and paralegals. This has resulted in over 1,000 litigation actions and 162,000 non-litigation actions in FY05 alone. She stressed the need for consumer education and industry cooperation to bring pressure for stronger IP enforcement worldwide.      

Ronald E. Myrick concluded the seminar by reviewing proposed changes to the U.S. patent law. Congress has begun the process of passing changes such as the issue of right of first inventor to file and right to a patent.   

To learn more about how the patent issue, read AeA's report on The U.S. Patent System: Why It Has to be Fixed.

Special thanks to Cisco Systems for hosting this seminar, and to our outstanding expert speakers.

Don't miss our next event - take a look at the AeA's event calendar for additional high impact events and opportunities to network with your peers.