Erika Arner chairs Finnegan's patent prosecution practice. She focuses on patent prosecution management, client counseling, and litigation, with an emphasis on electronic technology, computer software, and the Internet. Ms. Arner has helped clients of all sizes to establish and grow patent portfolios, align intellectual property strategy with business objectives, and adapt to the evolving legal landscape, including the America Invents Act.

Ms. Arner is a well-known authority in the area of business method patents and patent-eligibility jurisprudence. She represented the petitioners before the U.S. Supreme Court in Bilski v. Kappos, and has advised clients on issues related to patentable subject matter before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, U.S. district courts, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She has also served as lead counsel before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in post-grant review proceedings involving covered business method patents.

Ms. Arner has provided opinions on patentability, infringement, and validity of patents, and drafted or overseen the drafting of more than 150 patent applications for business method, electrical, telecommunications, and software-based technologies. She is a frequent author and lecturer on business method and computer-related patents.

Jeffrey Berkowitz, managing partner of the firm's Reston office, practices litigation, client counseling, and patent prosecution involving software and telecommunications-related inventions. He has broad experience in all aspects of patent litigation, including pre-filing investigations, discovery, preliminary injunctions, and drafting and arguing claim construction and summary judgment motions.

Mr. Berkowitz provides opinions on patentability, infringement, and validity of patents. He has drafted and overseen the drafting of thousands of patent applications for electrical, electronics, telecommunications, and software-based technologies. Patent portfolios he has managed protect a range of technologies, including adaptive distributed systems; code mobility; remote network resource leasing; network self-healing; runtime service discovery mechanisms; transaction management services; features of set-top boxes and modems; mobile devices, including many standards essential patents; and software applications, including ecommerce, FinTech, cybersecurity, search, and social networking.

Mr. Berkowitz regularly speaks and writes on current topics in intellectual property law. He has published, presented, and taught classes on software patents, AIA post-grant proceedings, and section 101 patent eligibility at programs sponsored by various trade and academic organizations, including World Congress, IPR Resources, ACC Israel, Practicing Law Institute (former program chair), Glasser LegalWorks Seminars (former program chair), Patent Resources Group (PRG), IBC, and EuroForum.

Jess currently prepares and litigates post-grant proceedings before the PTAB for Unified Patents. Prior to joining Unified, Jess practiced at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP for over ten years. At Finnegan, Jess litigated post-grant proceedings, district court cases, and International Trade Commission proceedings. Jess is also experienced in licensing negotiations, patent prosecution, due diligence investigations, and opinions on patent infringement, patent validity, and freedom-to-operate. Jess’ patent prosecution focused on business method and electrical technologies, often for clients in the financial industry.

Jess earned her J.D. from the University of Maryland (now Francis King Carey) School of Law and her M.B.E. and B.A. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nicole N. Morris is a member of the faculty at Emory University School of Law. She is a Professor in Practice and Director of the TI:GER program. TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) is an innovative partnership between Emory and Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) that brings together graduate students in law, business, science and engineering to work on ways to take innovative ideas from the lab to the marketplace. Professor Morris is a frequent speaker on patent law topics including patent prosecution, patent litigation, IP strategy and innovation. Prior to joining the Emory faculty, Professor Morris was the former Managing Patent Counsel at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia. While at The Coca-Cola Company, Nicole was responsible for the development and implementation of the Company’s global patent strategy and providing day-to-day advice & counseling to business stakeholders, including freedom-to-operate and competitive assessments and counseling concerning IP related agreements.

Professor Morris has over fifteen years of experience practicing patent law in large and mid-sized law firms and has represented clients in patent and trademark litigation matters, as well as patent prosecution matters. Professor Morris also worked as an engineer for six years with 3M and Eli Lilly and has over twenty-five years of experience working with consumer products and technology commercialization.

Charles R. Macedo, a physicist by training, litigates in all areas of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark and copyright law, with a special emphasis in complex litigation and appellate work. Companies and individuals from a wide range of industries turn to him to develop offensive and defensive strategies for the development and enforcement of their patent and trademark portfolios.

Fluent in technical jargon spoken by inventors and clients, patentese spoken at the PTO, legalese spoken by courts and attorneys, business jargon spoken by management, and plain English, he seeks to translate complex subject matter into terms all can understand.

The author of The Corporate Insider's Guide to U.S. Patent Practice, Mr. Macedo has been cited as an authority on intellectual property issues by the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, BNA, Bloomberg, Inside Counsel, Managing Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer Tactics, IP Law 360, JIPLP and other media.

His patent experience encompasses a broad range of industries and products including Internet, e-commerce, content delivery and computer-enabled inventions; financial services, transaction processing, electronic wallets and virtual or synthetic currency, including Bitcoins and all other Alt-coins; Software-As-A-Service; social media; semiconductor and photomasks; green energy and power, including wind generators and batteries; construction materials and structures; life sciences; and apparel, to name a few. Mr. Macedo also has enforced and defended against trademark assertions and/or opposition proceedings for financial service providers, casinos and resorts, non-profit organizations, celebrities; cosmetic companies, luxury retailers of designer handbags and retail chains. He also advises clients on IP contracts, licensing, confidentiality agreements, terms of services and IP acquisitions and transfers.

By identifying vulnerabilities and considering variations on design concepts, Mr. Macedo helps clients develop strategies to maximize protection and prevent infringement challenges. He frequently serves as special counsel to companies seeking an IP strategy, not just a patent; to IP holders in anticipation of litigation and as coordinating counsel for multiple law firms.

He is consistently at the forefront of complex and emerging patent issues in the financial services and transaction processing industries. Clients ranging from international banks, broker dealers and new business ventures call on Mr. Macedo to develop patent strategies, prepare patents, assert rights and defend against infringement claims. His work includes developing and implementing patent strategies associated with such cutting edge financial innovations like bitcoins and other synthetic currency or math-based assets. His experience includes successfully defending the Discover Card division of Morgan Stanley from one of the earliest business method patent assertions, and leading the team to implement and enforce the deposit sweep patent portfolio for Island Intellectual Property LLC. He has also helped clients implementing insurance related products seek patent and other intellectual property protection.

His experience before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board and its predecessor Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, including acting as leading counsel in inter partes review and covered business method proceedings, as well as advising and analyzing in the background. He also has represented patent owners in ex parte appeals, including reversals of obviousness rejections in Ex parte Buarque de Macedo.

Mr. Macedo writes prolifically and lectures regularly as he tracks and analyzes in real time the most important developments affecting IP strategy and litigation. As Co-Chair of the Amicus Committee of the New York Intellectual Property Law Association, Mr. Macedo has been principal counsel or additional counsel on amicus briefs in some of the leading patent cases of recent years, including Cuozzo (at Federal Circuit en banc petition, Supreme Court petition for certiorari and merits brief stage), Highmark and Octane (at the Supreme Court), Kimble v. Marvel (at the Supreme Court), Mayo v. Prometheus (at the Supreme Court), Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. (at the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit), CLS Bank Int’l v. Alice (at the Federal Circuit en banc and at the Supreme Court in the petition and merits brief stage), and Akamai (at the Federal Circuit on remand). His appellate experience also includes petitions for mandamus, for rehearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of various clients.

He holds bachelors and masters degrees in physics from The Catholic University of America and a law degree from Columbia Law School, all with honors. He was the sole law clerk to Hon. Daniel M. Friedman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 1989–1990. The recipient of the prestigious AIPLA Robert C. Watson Award, Mr. Macedo is included in Super Lawyers, IP Stars and Million Dollar Verdict. He also was a member of the Editorial Board for the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal and currently serves on the Editorial Board for Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice published by Oxford University Press.

Sean Reilly is Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C. where his principal responsibilities include advising members of The Clearing House’s senior business team on vital cybersecurity, intellectual property and technology law issues and transactions. In addition, Mr. Reilly coordinates with industry executives and senior lawyers from the nation’s leading banks on technology law issues and initiatives of concern to the financial services industry.

Mr. Reilly also serves as General Counsel of Askeladden L.L.C. where he oversees Askeladden’s Patent Quality Initiative (PQI). PQI is an education, information and advocacy effort seeking to improve the understanding, use and reliability patents, especially those pertaining to financial services. PQI is working to strengthen and support the patent examination process by making pertinent prior art more easily accessible and providing educational briefings on the evolution of technology in financial services. In addition, PQI files amicus briefs that highlight issues critical to patent quality, and petitions the United States Patent and Trademark Office to take a second look at patents under Inter Partes Review (IPR).

Before joining The Clearing House, Mr. Reilly was in private practice at Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper and Scinto, and worked at the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a patent examiner. He also worked for Intel Corporation in the Mobile Platforms Group. Mr. Reilly holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida and a J.D. from Fordham University, and is a member of the New York and New Jersey bars.

Established in 1853, The Clearing House is the oldest banking association and payments company in the United States. It is owned by the world’s largest commercial banks, which collectively hold more than half of all U.S. deposits and which employ over one million people in the United States, and more than two million people worldwide. The Clearing House Association L.L.C. is a nonpartisan advocacy organization that represents the interests of its owner banks by promoting and developing policies to support a safe, sound and competitive banking system that serves customers and communities. Its affiliate, The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C., which is regulated as a systemically important financial market utility, owns and operates payments technology infrastructure that provides safe and efficient payment, clearing and settlement services to financial institutions, and leads innovation and thought leadership activities for the next generation of payments. It clears almost $2 trillion each day, representing nearly half of all automated clearing-house, funds transfer and check-image payments made in the United States.

Jon Gordon is a partner in the New York office of Haug Partners. He has extensive experience practicing patent law, with particular expertise in prosecuting patents related to computers, networks, telecommunications, medical information systems, financial applications, and blockchains.

In his practice, Jon takes advantage of his broad and deep technical expertise. He taught himself to program at age 12 and went on to earn a degree in computer science. He spent several years actively developing, maintaining, and extending multi-tiered intranet and Internet applications. His work experience also includes time as a trader on a derivatives floor.

Jon is involved in all aspects of patent practice for both foreign and domestic clients, including patent litigation, patent prosecution, due diligence, client counseling, and providing opinions of counsel.

Mr. Bromberg joined Morgan Stanley in 2000. He has global responsibility for all intellectual property matters. He is also responsible for a broad range of transactional matters.

Mr. Bromberg currently serves as co-Head of the SIFMA Intellectual Property Sub-Committee which represents hundreds of securities firms, banks and asset managers.

Prior to Morgan Stanley, Mr. Bromberg was a patent litigator at Morgan & Finnegan (1991-2000) and an electronics designer at Honeywell (1986-1989).

Mr. Bromberg has a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.S.E.E. from Tufts University. He is a member of the New York and Massachusetts bars and a registered patent attorney.

Maxine Graham is currently VP & Chief IP Counsel at American Express Company. In her current position, Ms. Graham has global responsibility for intellectual property (IP) matters for Amex. She leads the Intellectual Property Law & Strategy team that handles Amex’s trademarks, patents, copyrights, licensing, M&A, commercial transactions, litigation, and intellectual property strategy. Prior to joining American Express, Ms. Graham was patent litigator at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. Ms. Graham is a member of the New York bar and is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. She graduated with a J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School, has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Physics from Furman University.

Elizabeth Lester is Intellectual Property Counsel at Equifax, where she manages the global intellectual property portfolio and provides counseling on intellectual property issues in transactional matters. Prior to joining Equifax, Elizabeth was an associate at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, where her practice was focused on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions. Elizabeth received a J.D. from Georgia State University, a M.S. in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky. She is actively involved in various professional and community activities, including serving as a board member of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, a Girl Scout Troop leader, and raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team in Training.

Brad Lawrence focuses his practice on intellectual property (IP) counseling including the protection of clients' inventions through carefully planned patent procurement, integrated with other strategic considerations, including development of licensing strategies and analysis of the IP and product positions of others. Brad also devotes a significant amount of time to performing product clearances in the form of non-infringement and/or invalidity opinions. He also has significant prior litigation experience that includes many aspects of patent, trademark, and trade secret litigation as well as licensing and other extrajudicial resolution of IP disputes.

Colm is currently General Counsel, Intellectual Property at MasterCard in Purchase, New York. In his current position, Colm has global responsibility for intellectual property (IP) and related technology legal matters for MasterCard. He oversees a team of 18 professionals that handle MasterCard’s trademarks, patents, copyrights, licensing and technology transfers on a worldwide basis. MasterCard’s IP portfolio comprises over 13,000 trademarks in 220 countries and over 3,500 patents and patent applications worldwide.

Colm joined MasterCard in 1995 as Vice President and Senior Counsel. Prior to his employment with MasterCard, Colm was previously Senior Counsel with PepsiCo, Inc., where he had responsibility for trademark and related intellectual property matters for PepsiCo’s beverage divisions. Colm previously was associated with the law firms Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Morgan & Finnegan.

Colm has been recognized by a number of industry awards and honors. Colm was named as “In House Counsel of the Year” by the World Trademark Review (WTR) in May 2016 at the International Trademark Association (INTA) Annual Meeting. In May 2015, the MasterCard IP group received the “Financial & Professional Services Team of the Year” award by the WTR. In June 2017, Mastercard’s IP team won an award as “Best IP Department, Overall Strategy” at the International General Counsel Awards event of the International Legal Alliance Summit and Awards (ILASA). Colm was also named as an “IP Star” by Managing Intellectual Property in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Colm is a frequent speaker at IP industry conferences and seminars.

Colm is a graduate of Fordham University Law School in New York City. He has a degree in biological sciences from Bennington College and participated in research at a number of laboratories, including receiving a National Science Foundation research grant at Princeton University. Colm is a member of the New York and patent bars. He is also a member of the ABA and American Corporate Counsel Association (ACCA), and was President of the Westchester/Southern Connecticut Chapter of ACCA (WESFACCA) during 2014 - 2015. He also participates as a founding member of The Conference Board’s Chief IP Officer Council.

Michael T. Zoppo is a Principal in Fish & Richardson’s New York office. A registered patent lawyer, his practice focuses on the trial and appeal of patent cases, as well as related counseling in the areas of financial services, electrical/computer engineering, materials science, automotive technologies, and semiconductors. In addition to patent cases, he litigates trade secret, Lanham Act, breach of contract, defamation, and fraud cases. Before Michael focused his practice on litigation and counseling, he spent several years prosecuting patent applications in technical disciplines such as power systems, chemistry, aircraft propulsion, and semiconductors.

Matthew Kelly is the Managing Director and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world’s largest and most diverse derivatives exchange. He is a patent attorney and is in charge of all aspects of intellectual property including the patent and trademarks prosecution, intellectual property licensing, acquisitions and litigation.

Mr. Klocinski is Senior Managing Counsel and Senior Intellectual Property Counsel at MasterCard Worldwide, a global technology company and payments industry leader.

As an intellectual property professional with more than 25 years of experience cutting across the private and public sectors, Mr. Klocinski has successfully worked with a broad range of technologies including computer software, electronics, advanced business processes, telecommunications, semiconductors and acoustics. Mr. Klocinski's specialties include intellectual property strategy (with an emphasis on patent portfolio building and management), intellectual property risk mitigation and dispute resolution and treatment of intellectual property in commercial agreements.

Prior to joining MasterCard in March 2012, Mr. Klocinski was a Vice-President and Assistant General Counsel at CA, Inc. for six years. As Assistant General Counsel, he designed and implemented the company's patent program, directed the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, managed intellectual property risk mitigation, supported IP issues in mergers and acquisitions and litigation, managed trademark clearance, filing, prosecution and dispute resolution and managed CA’s copyright program.

For three years, starting in 2001, Mr. Klocinski was Assistant General Counsel at Capital One Financial. His responsibilities included, managing invention intake, preparing and prosecuting of patent applications, designing and implementing patent strategy, managing patent risk mitigation, and consulting on patent issues in mergers and acquisitions.

In addition to his corporate experience, Mr. Klocinski has also practiced with the Washington D.C. offices of Baker Botts, Hunton & Williams, and Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner. Mr. Klocinski's private practice experience focused on patent prosecution, patent portfolio management, patent litigation and risk mitigation and general intellectual property client counseling.

Prior to and while enrolled in Law School at Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Klocinski worked as an Examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office where he researched and prepared official actions and appeal briefs for United States patent applications and PCT applications related to image analysis.

Mr. Klocinski holds a J.D. from Georgetown Law School and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University.

Dan Pirolo is currently the Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel for Intellectual Property and Technology for Synchrony Financial. In that role, he is responsible for managing all aspects of Synchrony's IP program, including patent portfolio development and enforcement. Prior to joining Synchrony, Dan was a senior IP litigator for the General Electric Company, and helped form a new global group to manage IP litigation across all GE businesses. Before joing GE, Dan was a complex commercial litigator for Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston, Texas, where he represented clients in a variety of disputes including intellectual property, antitrust, securities laws, and corporate governance. Dan holds a BS in Geology from Texas A&M University and a JD from Notre Dame Law School.

W. Karl Renner is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. office of Fish & Richardson P.C. Mr. Renner co-chairs the firm’s Post-Grant Practice Group, and he serves on the firm’s Management Committee. His practice emphasizes client counseling, strategic patent prosecution, contentious inter and ex parte post-grant and reissue work, due diligence and freedom-to-operate investigations, and patent-related opinion work. In this practice, Mr. Renner has provided the strategic direction for well over 300 AIA post-grant matters, challenging and defending patents, most commonly in coordination with litigation counsel amidst co-pending disputes. Recently, Mr. Renner was elected to serve as an interim director of the PTAB Bar Association, the first national bar association of its kind to form in more than 30 years. The PTAB Bar Association intends to establish best practices for the unique practice and skills required before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Jeff Glaser joined Wells Fargo in 2002 and is past chair of their Intellectual Property Practice Group. As the pace of innovation accelerates in financial services technology, Jeff is helping to guide a customer-focused IP strategy across the company’s diverse business lines. His current focus is on IP asset transfer and technology handoffs in M&A deals, along with joint technology development in bank consortiums. His prior responsibilities included serving as lead counsel on worldwide privacy and information security matters.

With a background in engineering, Jeff was an IBM marketing representative in Manhattan before starting law school. Following his early years as a commercial litigator, he moved into technology deal making and IP-based transactions. During his career, Jeff has served as both in-house and outside counsel advising a wide range of clients -- from tech startups to industry-leading multinationals.

Tanguy de Carbonnières is Deputy General Counsel and Managing Director in Fannie Mae's Legal Department, in Washington, DC.

Tanguy leads the teams in charge of advising Fannie Mae's internal clients on Intellectual Property, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Procurement, Social Media, Data licensing and management, and IT governance-related matters.

Prior to joining Fannie Mae, Tanguy worked in the DC office of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, now WilmerHale, focusing on cross border transactions, transnational litigation and arbitration. Prior to relocating in the United States, Tanguy practiced law in Paris, France for six years, primarily litigating real estate and corporate matters.

Tanguy is a frequent speaker on topics relating to IP management in the financial services industry.

Tanguy is admitted in New York, the District of Columbia, and Paris, France (inactive).

Tanguy received an LL.M. from American University on international business transactions, focusing on international intellectual property protection, and a maîtrise en droit (JD equivalent) from the University of Paris II Assas.

Barry J. Schindler is the Chair of Greenberg Traurig's Global Patent Prosecution Group -- a group of approximately 4,000 domestic and 4,100 foreign applications pending and over 100 attorneys, who are registered with the USPTO. Barry has more than twenty-five years of legal experience in all aspects of pharmaceutical and chemical patent prosecution -- representing numerous major pharmaceutical and chemical companies regarding patents relating to small molecules and synthetic compounds.

Barry has helped companies of all sizes build and manage large patent portfolios, develop in-house procedures, and formulate intellectual property strategies. Barry positions clients to gain a competitive advantage by identifying patentable subject matter and drafting claims and providing patent opinions in such a way that infringement becomes possible to prove.

Barry has worked in numerous patent litigations to develop an overall case strategy that involves complementing a litigation strategy with actions at the USPTO. Barry has been involved in dozens of reexamination proceedings and over 50 IPR proceedings at the USPTO. He has worked with the USPTO in setting up numerous technical fairs, seminars and meetings to further the education of the Examiners.

Barry, an active member of the firm's Israel Practice also focuses his practice on managing the patent portfolio for numerous innovative Israeli start-ups. Barry is a frequent business visitor to Israel and is very involved with the local tech community.

Patrick Jewik's practice focuses on building strategic patent portfolios for clients and helping clients reduce the risk of patent infringement. He has performed freedom to operate studies, assisted with strategic patent acquisitions, and participated in multi-patent licensing negotiations for his clients. Patrick has also prepared and prosecuted patent applications in a number of different technologies including semiconductors, medical devices, bioinformatics, payment processing, computer software and hardware, consumer products, and clinical diagnostic systems. He has successfully prosecuted both inter partes and ex parte reexamination applications and reissue patent applications, and has had many of his prosecuted patents litigated. He has also obtained numerous patents for his clients in less than one year using the U.S.P.T.O.'s accelerated examination and prioritized examination processes.

Patrick also worked as a patent examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and he frequently writes and speaks on different topics in the law. Patrick was recommended by Legal 500 US for Patent Prosecution in 2015 and the three years immediately preceding. Patrick was also recognized as an "IP Star" in 2019 and the six years immediately preceding by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.

Prior to entering the field of law, Patrick worked as a process and co-op engineer at IBM Corporation, where he worked in semiconductor manufacturing, circuit board manufacturing and high density magnetic disk research.

Elizabeth Lester is Intellectual Property Counsel at Equifax, where she manages the global intellectual property portfolio and provides counseling on intellectual property issues in transactional matters. Prior to joining Equifax, Elizabeth was an associate at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, where her practice was focused on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions. Elizabeth received a J.D. from Georgia State University, a M.S. in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky. She is actively involved in various professional and community activities, including serving as a board member of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, a Girl Scout Troop leader, and raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team in Training.