The Patent Paradox (BUS 111). Session 6 Announcement.

This Thursday, February 23, we are going to have two guest speaker panels. The first one will be on how Venture Capitalists (VCs) value patents; the second one on the Great Nortel Patent Auction.

The guests for the VC panel will be:

John W. Jarve, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures.

John joined Menlo Ventures in 1985. Over the past 24 years, he has led Menlo's investments in more than 40 portfolio companies, primarily in the communications, storage, semiconductor, Internet and financial technology sectors.
John is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering) and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (M.B.A.).

Jonathan MacQuitty, Ph.D., Partner, Abingworth LLP

Jonathan has more than 15 years of operational experience in life science companies and 12 years of venture capital experience. His directorships have included Adiana, Dicerna, Entelos, Guava, Gynesonics, Iconix, Labcyte, ParAllele BioScience, Personalis, SFJ Pharma and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals.
Jonathan has an MA in Chemistry from Oxford University, a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Sussex and an MBA from Stanford University.

Wade Woodson, Managing Director, Sigma Partners

Wade joined Sigma in 1987 and became a general partner in 1990. He has been helping startup technology companies become valuable enterprises for more than twenty years. In that period, he has developed experience with a broad range of technology segments ranging from semiconductors to communications services to enterprise software.
Wade holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University in electrical engineering, a law degree from Harvard Law School and an M.B.A. from the University of California Haas School of Business.

The guests for the Nortel Auction panel will be:

Ron Laurie, Managing Director, Inflexion Point Strategy

Ron Laurie has worked in Silicon Valley for over forty years, initially as a computer programmer and systems engineer, and then as an intellectual property lawyer. In 2004, he co-founded Inflexion Point Strategy, LLC, an intellectual property investment bank engaged in buying, selling and investing in strategic IP assets and IP-intensive businesses.
As a lawyer, Ron advised clients in the semiconductor, computer, software, communications, media and financial services industries on intellectual property strategy -- a subject which he has taught at Stanford and Boalt (UC-Berkeley) law schools.

Richard Waters,West Coast Editor, Financial Times

Based in San Francisco, Richard Waters has been responsible for the West Coast coverage of the Financial Times and FT.com, as well as global coverage of the technology industry, since August 2002. His appointment is a new one for the FT, reflecting the second phase of a national expansion plan in the US that has seen the newspaper’s US edition increase its circulation five-fold since 1997.
Richard's awards include: Accountancy Journalist of the Year, 1989; Reporter of the Year, British Press Awards, 1992 (part of a 5- person FT team that won the top annual reporting award in the UK); Award for best corporate finance submission, Business Journalist of the Year Awards, 2004.

In preparation for the second panel, please read John Kelley's two-part article about the Nortel Auction, "War of Tech Giants" -  part 1, part 2.