Mark Beloborodov is IP Portfolio & Counseling Manager at Royal Philips, N.V., based in Cambridge, MA. In this role, Mark is responsible for the intellectual property strategy, counseling and portfolio management of several business units of Philips in the domain of connected care & health informatics, and leads a global team of in-house patent attorneys. Prior to joining Philips in 2007, Mark was in private practice at two major Boston law firms, drafting and prosecuting patent applications for various technology companies, and then served as Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property at Color Kinetics, a pioneer in LED lighting, through its acquisition by Philips. Mark is a graduate of National Technical University of Ukraine and Boston University School of Law.

Chief Judge Scott R. Boalick was appointed to the Board in 2007. At the Board, he served as an Administrative Patent Judge, Lead Judge, Vice Chief Judge and Deputy Chief Judge prior to becoming the Chief Judge. Prior to joining the Board, Chief Judge Boalick served as a patent attorney with the Department of the Navy at two different research laboratories. Before that, he was an associate at Fish & Richardson and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Alvin A. Schall of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In addition, Chief Judge Boalick worked as a radar systems engineer at Technology Service Corporation and served on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Chief Judge Boalick earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center where he was a Notes and Comments Editor of The Georgetown Law Journal and received the Leon Robbin Patent Award. He earned both a M.S.E. in Systems Engineering and a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. Chief Judge Boalick is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia Bars, and is registered to practice before the USPTO.

Daniel Ryman is acting as Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As acting Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality, Mr. Ryman provides executive leadership to the Office of Patent Training, the Office of Patent Quality Assurance (OPQA), the Office of Process Improvement (OPI), and the Office of Stakeholder Outreach and Patents Ombudsman. Along with acting as Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality, Mr. Ryman is also the current Associate Commissioner for Patent Quality.

Prior to becoming Associate Commissioner for Patent Quality, Mr. Ryman served as the director of OPQA. In this role, he oversaw USPTO’s efforts to assess and analyze the quality of its patent examination processes and work products. Mr. Ryman also held the positions of senior advisor to the Under Secretary and Director of the USPTO, senior advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality, and as supervisor in both the USPTO’s Central Reexamination Unit and Technology Center 2400. Mr. Ryman started his USPTO career as a patent examiner focused on applications related to multiplex communication.

Mr. Ryman has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and a law degree from the George Washington University Law School.

Manny W. Schecter is Chief Patent Counsel and Associate General Counsel at IBM. Mr. Schecter leads IBM’s worldwide intellectual property law organization on patent matters and advises on intellectual property strategy and policy. His office is at IBM corporate headquarters in Armonk, NY.

Mr. Schecter serves on the board of directors of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), the IPO Education Foundation (where he serves as the president), Allied Security Trust, the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding, and he served on the board of directors of the American Intellectual Property Law Association from 2013-2016. He can be found on Twitter at @MannySchecter. Mr. Schecter has been named a Corporate IP Star and one of the 50 most influential people in IP by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.

Mr. Schecter is a graduate of Cornell University and the George Washington University Law School.