Speaker Profiles

Listed in alphabetical order by speaker name

Kari Barnes

Kari Barnes focuses her practice on Intellectual Property prosecution and associated transactional endeavors. Ms. Barnes is proficient in domestic and international patent prosecution for a wide variety of technologies, including green technologies, message and devices for renewable energy and resources, mechanical devices, medical devices, electronic devices, computer hardware and software, and networking systems and protocols. She also has experience with intellectual property strategic planning, intellectual property-related due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, freedom to operate opinions, patent infringement and validity opinions.

Ms. Barnes currently advises a large international medical device company on its intellectual property strategy, including creating and maintaining a foreign and domestic patent portfolio; offensive and defensive opinions regarding infringement, freedom to operate, and patentability; as well as assessing the intellectual property assets of potential acquisitions. She has prosecuted a large number of patents protecting stents, catheters, catheter placement systems, needle safety devices, ultrasound devices, urological slings, and other implants and delivery systems.

She counsels small businesses and start-ups on intellectual property strategy and portfolio planning to protect an emerging market share or to retain and maximize intellectual property rights in view of joint venture research and development, and government grants. She has prosecuted a number of patents for these companies covering various technologies, such as storage area networks, remote access security and devices, beverage dispensers and holders, clean energy wood burning furnaces, pyrolysis systems, ratcheting pulleys, and laser testing devices and mirrors.

Prior to joining Buchalter, Ms. Barnes was an attorney at Rutan & Tucker, LLP and Morrison Foerster, litigating and prosecuting patents for large companies involving toys, storage area networks, medical devices, DVD technologies, cell phones, and computer hardware interfaces, including touch screens. Prior to law school, Ms. Barnes instructed at the Colorado School of Mines’ Physics Department. As an adjunct professor, she taught undergraduate physics courses in mechanics and electromagnetism. She was also a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the optoelectronics department.

SPEAKER PROFILES

David Cohen

A member of Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A., resident in its Washington, D.C., office. He is also a member of the Firm’s Operating Committee. Mr. Cohen’s practice focuses on providing strategic advice to a wide range of clients on international trade and customs law matters including valuation, preference programs and customs audits. In particular, he assists companies in structuring multitiered transactions to maximize lawful duty savings transactions. Mr. Cohen also works closely with the firm’s Trade Negotiations and Legislative Affairs practice on issues such as the development and implementation of trade laws and regulations and representation of client interests before federal agencies and judicial bodies. Before joining the Firm, Mr. Cohen served as an attorney for the U.S. Customs Service’s Office of Regulations and Rulings from 1993 to 1999, where he concentrated on customs and international trade matters. During his tenure at Customs headquarters, he was affiliated with the Carrier Rulings Branch, the Special Classification and Marking Branch and the Value Branch. Mr. Cohen holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance and risk management from the University of Wisconsin and a Juris Doctor from Marquette University Law School, where he was student articles editor of the Marquette Law Review. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal and District of Columbia circuits, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Wisconsin. He is the author of The Community Reinvestment Act, Asset or Liability, which was published in the spring 1992 issue of the Marquette Law Review.

Tom Cove

SFIA’s president and CEO, Tom Cove, represents the interests of the nation’s sports & fitness industry by directing SFIA’s overall strategy and positioning among legislative, industry, and media influences. He also oversees the industry’s premier research facility. Cove serves on boards of directors of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry, Tennis Industry Association, USA Football and Children’s Charities Foundation of Washington, D.C. Prior to joining SFIA, he served on staff in the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Senate.

Mickey Ferri

Mickey Ferri, PhD, is an entrepreneur, economist, athlete, and coach. He believes in consistent self-improvement, living with genuine excitement, and helping others wherever possible. He is passionate about bringing to market disruptive technologies that improve people’s lives, especially in exercise, healthcare, sports, and entertainment.

As Chief Growth Officer of Enflux, Mickey develops, implements, and directs the company’s growth, including marketing, partnerships, revenue generation, and guest satisfaction. Mickey earned his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, where he studied the economics of technology adoption and market dynamics in sports and entertainment.

Eric Forkosh

While most kids grew up playing sports, Eric grew up building robots that played sports. Eric is a 24 year old multi-patent inventor, former adjunct professor at The Cooper Union, and former investment partner at Dorm Room Fund. His passion is applying cutting edge technology to consumer sports and bringing joy to players and athletes all over the world.

Michelle Gilboe

Michelle Gilboe is an experienced trial attorney with a national practice defending consumer product manufacturers in the sports and fitness industry. As lead counsel, she regularly defends cases involving catastrophic injury and wrongful death. Her acute understanding of the design, manufacture and science of the products she defends allows her to master the legal complexities of each case. Additionally, Michelle is well-versed in risk management strategies, regulatory compliance, reporting requirements and recall issues. She is an active member of the Legal Task Force of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.

Chris Hendren

Mr. Hendren is currently the Vice-President Industry WW Analytic Solutions for retail, consumer product and travel & transport Industries. In this role he is the primary offering executive for cognitive solutions led by our Global Business Services team including Metro Pulse. Metro Pulse is IBM industry platform for cognitive that enables companies to combine their proprietary data with IBM curated data including weather, events, social, and IOT data. His client’s are using Metro Pulse and machine learning to transform customer engagement and marketing, merchandising and product management, and supply chain planning & execution.

SPEAKER PROFILES

Mr. Hendren has spent the entire 30+ years of his professional experience focused on technology enabled business improvement within the Consumer Industries. He is a frequent industry speaker and co-author of “Retail 2020 Reinventing Retail Once Again.” He is a member of the exclusive IBM Industry Academy. Before entering the technology industry he spent 18 years as an industry side executive holding officer roles in finance, merchandising, and supply chain.

Kenie Ho

Kenie Ho has litigated more than 60 patents in U.S. district courts and at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), dealing with a wide range of issues specific to patent litigation, including technical discovery, claim construction, Markman hearings, validity, infringement, and expert consulting. He has handled several hundred domestic and foreign patent applications at all stages of prosecution, from application drafting to patent issuance, as well as post-issuance matters such as reexamination and inter partes review (IPR). He uses his extensive experience in litigation and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to provide legal advice on how courts will likely interpret patents and obtain good patent rights with true business value.

Mr. Ho frequently conducts due diligence evaluating IP portfolios before and during litigation. He has reviewed hundreds of patents as part of multi-million dollar IP licensing and litigation settlement deals. He helps clients analyze products in the market to develop offensive and defensive IP portfolio strategies, including quick patent portfolio procurement through acquisition deals, licensing and cross licensing, and using procedures at the USPTO to attack and defend U.S. patents.

Mr. Ho’s areas of particular expertise include Internet technologies, signal processing, telecommunications, cryptology, radar/sonar systems, computer and electronic hardware design, software developments, and business methods. He leads the firm’s Internet of Things (IoT) working group.

Matthew Kelly

Mr. Kelly is with AIG’s Client Risk Solutions as a Senior Liability Risk Consultant, focusing on emerging liabilities. He works in-house and with clients to address existing and potential claims and existing and emerging loss drivers, particularly those related to litigation exposures. He analyzes issues across the spectrum of third-party liabilities that businesses encounter – product liability, premises liability, general negligence and health, safety & security. His goal is to assess apparent and latent exposure areas and identify practical solutions for clients, beyond traditional loss control areas. Prior to

AIG Mr. Kelly practiced law for 10 years in the Metro New York area. He focused on general liability defense, including product liability litigation, for private clients, insurance companies, and municipalities. Experiences with sports & fitness clients, in product liability, general liability, and commercial matters, led him to co-found his firm’s Sports Law practice. Mr. Kelly is admitted to the bars of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. He has a B.A. from Boston College and earned his J.D. cum laude from Brooklyn Law School. He is based in New York.

Alex Lewis

Alex Lewis is Vice President of Sales for SURYS’ Brand Protection business in North America. Lewis has spent more than 20 years working with Governments and private corporations throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, helping them to protect documents of value and branded products from the threats of counterfeiting, tampering and diversion. Over the course of his career, Lewis has developed security programs in a multitude of different industries, protecting the brand marks of clients that include MasterCard, Disney, Pfizer, Intel, and the International Olympic Committee.

SURYS is a global anti-counterfeiting company, providing solutions that protect Intellectual Property while enabling consumer engagement and interaction. SURYS’ client list includes many major international corporations in the Sporting Goods, Licensing, Pharmaceutical and Automotive industries as well as Governments worldwide.

Jeffrey Ly

A Bioengineering graduate from Cornell, Jeffrey applies a unique human factors perspective to product engineering and implementation. More than an engineer, he’s an entrepreneur at heart. He’s led project teams at Cornell that raised $25,000 in 2 months and has a unique ability to get people so excited about an idea, they can’t help but hop onboard too. Jeffrey focuses on designing to allow humans and technology to interface more effectively. His core focus with XBoard is to develop and drive the technical and business vision behind the creation of the world’s first electric skateboard.

Kevin Mayer

Kevin Mayer is a partner and civil trial attorney in the California offices of Crowell & Moring LLP, and a recognized defense expert on California Proposition 65 matters. He is the long-time Co-Chair of the SFIA Legal Task Force. Kevin’s practice focuses on products liability, OSHA, environmental, complex commercial and mass tort litigation. Kevin’s trial docket includes individual, multi-party and class action

SPEAKER PROFILES

cases involving allegedly defective products, fraud, unfair and deceptive business practices, and regulatory compliance issues. He has represented numerous clients in the sporting goods, medical device, pharmaceutical, oil and chemical, mining, manufacturing, and construction industries in a variety of federal and state courts, and before government agencies. He is a recipient of the Burton Award for Legal Achievement and the Bet Tzedek Social Justice Award, and a Fellow in the Litigation Counsel of America, the Trial Lawyers’ Honor Society.

Angela Meyer

Dr. Angela Meyer is Vice President of Client Services for Exponent based in Menlo Park, CA. Dr. Meyer leads the client services, business development, marketing and communications functions for Exponent. She is a licensed professional mechanical engineer (CA) and her technical expertise includes failure analysis and design assessment of mechanical systems subject to static and dynamic loads (i.e., why things break). Angela holds three degrees from Southern Methodist University and completed a post-doctoral research appointment at the Center for Advanced Materials, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California.

She also completed a certificate at the Executive Management Program, Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. She is member of the Advisory Board at the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU and is a rabid “Wisconsin Badger mom!”

James Miceli

James Miceli is the founder and Principal of Epoch Lacrosse and C6 Composites LLC. He grew up on Long Island and started playing lacrosse at nine years old. With a strong passion and dedication to the game he loved, Miceli attended Adelphi University where he was a 2x NCAA DII National Champion and 1st Team All-America his senior year. After college Miceli worked for Pioneer Electronics, USA under his mentor and close friend Russ Johnston where he learned the importance of building a brand vs. selling a product. After moving to Minneapolis to manage the Best Buy account for Pioneer, Miceli’s role expanded to include short, mid and long term business planning and product planning by providing a consumer facing POV at which time he become intrigued with the role manufacturing has in product development and marketing. Miceli started the planning and foundation of Epoch Lacrosse while living in Redondo Beach, CA but moved back to Minneapolis with his now wife Jessica to launch the brand publically. James and Jessica Miceli now live in Golden Valley, MN with their two children Francesca “Frankie” and Lorenzo “Enzo.”

Aaron Parker

Aaron Parker focuses his practice on patent litigation before U.S. district courts and counseling clients on global patent litigation strategies. He also has experience with patent and trade secret portfolio analysis and management, complex patent prosecution, reexaminations, post-grant proceedings, licensing, preparing opinions of counsel, due diligence, and clearance analysis. Much of Parker’s work relates to medical device technology, including coronary bare metal and drug eluting stents, medical imaging, balloon dilatation catheters, pacemakers, defibrillators, dialysis machines and processes, radiotherapy devices, and heat packs. He has experience involving a wide range of other technical subjects, including wearable technology, consumer electronics, activity tracker, consumer health products, healthcare IT software and systems, mobile smart phone technology, oil and gas separators, power tools, drainage and septic systems, fuel injection systems, oil pipeline technology, aerogel materials, composite decking, and infant/toddler products. Parker also counsels clients in the sports and fitness industry on all aspects of intellectual property. Parker frequently presents to clients and various industry associations on patent and trade secret issues, global enforcement of patents, and practicing before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

John Peters

John Peters is in charge of all stakeholder relationships, leads revenue generation and value creation for the SFIA. He manages SFIA’s 1,000+ member base, events and SFIA’s Sports Tech initiative at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as well. John is an advisor to several sports accelerators and was named Sporting Goods Business (SGB)’s top 40 under 40 in 2016.

Len Polhemus

Len Polhemus is a Managing Consultant within the Cognitive & Analytics service line of IBM’s Global Business Services. The Cognitive & Analytics service line is focused on helping clients gain greater precision and predictability out of every business decision they make by applying cognition to fundamentally transform their business. Mr. Polhemus began his career with IBM in 2013 as part of IBM’s Chief Analytics Office, an internal analytics consulting team focused on driving insight and innovation through large Enterprise Transformation Initiatives globally. Len was charged with teams to create multiple enterprise scalable tools that integrated disparate data sources, both structured and unstructured, leveraging the power of cognitive analytics. Set on taking the IBM story to clients, Len joined GBS as Senior Consultant for the Advanced Analytics

SPEAKER PROFILES

Center of Competency. Since moving to his external-facing role, he has led a number of successful First of a Kind analytics projects in industries including media & entertainment, retail & CPG, pharma, agriculture, and government. Currently, Mr. Polhemus is the Go To Market Lead for GBS Weather Integration Team focused on identifying and building cognitive solutions to meet the needs of clients across the globe that leverage some of the core capabilities from the acquisition including a scalable big data and IOT platform, hyper-local weather data, user-based location data, and media/ advertising capabilities.

Gary Potters

Gary Potters is a partner with Potters & Della Pietra LLP. Potters has significant litigation and trial experience in product liability, negligence, commercial, business and banking litigation, insurance and reinsurance matters, including Fidelity & Surety, Errors & Ommission, Directors & Officer claims, toxic torts, including asbestos, lead, carbon monoxide, silica and chemical exposure, construction-defect, municipal and employment litigation. Potters was admitted to the Bar of the State of New Jersey, and U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in December 1988, and the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit in 1989. He is a member of the New Jersey State, Essex and Hudson County Bar Associations. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Bridgeport School of Law (now Quinnipiac University School of Law) in 1987, where he was awarded the Best Brief Award in 1985. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science with Academic Honors from The George Washington University in 1984. Prior to forming Potters & Della Pietra LLP, Potters served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Seymour Margulies, J.S.C. in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Hudson County. Following his clerkship, Potters has worked as lead trial counsel concentrating in the practice areas set forth above. He serves as National Coordinating Counsel for several entities confronting significant asbestos exposure in lawsuits filed across the U.S.

Rich Ramlow

Rich Ramlow is the Regional Practice Leader representing Casualty in the Major Account and Specialty area for the Midwest Zone at AIG. His background includes a wide range of experiences, starting in professional liability at Shand Morahan and then a 20 year stint at Marsh handling National Accounts in both Chicago and Milwaukee. At AIG since 2007, Rich is primarily responsible for the lead Umbrella segment of AIG’s Casualty business in the Midwest.

Matt Tamasco

A litigator and business attorney, Matt Tamasco has a diverse legal practice representing manufacturing, financial services, technology, aviation and insurance companies in a broad array of areas including product liability, employment law, intellectual property and corporate matters. Calling upon his prior experience in the field of computer network management, Tamasco also serves as e-Discovery liaison for the firm’s New York office. He previously served as Litigation Partnerin-Charge and Hiring Partner for the New York Office and continues to act as a mentor to associates of the firm at every opportunity.

Co-chair of the firm’s Product Liability practice group, Tamasco represents companies in asbestos, product defect and personal injury cases throughout the country. In addition, he serves as national coordinating and trial counsel for commercial equipment manufacturers and technology consulting companies. He represents a number of closely held corporations as corporate counsel in the negotiation and drafting of various contracts and as litigation counsel in shareholder and intellectual property disputes.

In addition, he regularly appears in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the southern district of New York with respect to various creditor claims and adversarial proceedings pending in the jurisdiction. He has experience litigating various bankruptcy issues including disputes that have arisen with respect to various executory contracts, issues of jurisdiction and debtor rights to assets, successor liability issues related to asset acquisitions that have arisen from mergers, bankruptcy workouts and court approved asset sales and liquidations in addition to enforcement of statutory litigation stays.

Richard Underwood

Dr. Richard Underwood is a Manager in Exponent’s Biomedical Engineering Practice based in Philadelphia. Dr. Underwood is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He specializes in the tribological performance of mechanical systems and has worked on tribology and failure analysis projects in the bearing, steel, power distribution, power generation, automotive, and medical device sectors. He is an experienced metrologist, with expertise including measurement of wear and analysis of surface topography. He has designed testing to comply with international standards (e.g., ISO or ASTM) and novel test apparatus, especially in the areas of tribological testing and the design of test apparatus. Richard is an active member of the ASTM and is chair of the ASTM Task Group for Metal on Metal Clinical Characterization. Richard holds a MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering Tribology from Imperial College, London (UK).

SPEAKER PROFILES

John Wackman

Having previously served as an in-house attorney for a national manufacturer of recreational products, John understands the business pressures faced by his clients and strives to achieve their business goals in every legal matter. Through a strategic and efficient approach to litigation, regulatory issues, and preventative matters, John delivers exceptional results to his clients. He avoids any unwanted litigation surprises by thoroughly analyzing cases from the outset and developing a litigation plan that utilizes his client’s resources to focus on the key case issues. John’s direct and targeted approach combined with his smart, hard-working style gives clients the confidence that their matters are always proceeding as planned. John has had the opportunity to mediate cases across the country, as both the litigator and client representative. He brings this unique experience to his role as a mediator and strives to achieve case resolutions using a patient, creative approach. When not working hard for his clients, John loves hanging out with his family, going for a bike ride, or attending his kids’ sporting events.