IP Dealmakers Forum

IP Dealmakers Forum was held on November 6th and 7th in New York City.  It brought together essentially the whose who of players in the patent/ip field.  The event was well represented by various companies, law firms, advisers, consultants, brokers, and investors.

First off the venue was very nice.  Everything looked brand new, like it was built yesterday.  The staff at the event were very courteous and attentive.  The location was off the beaten track and I would recommend for the event to be held closer to midtown.  I was told the event was sold out.

I thought the panels were very good, highlighted by speakers Erich Spangenberg, Alex Poltorak, Michael Cohen, Jay Walker, Ashley Keller, Eran Zur, Doug Croxall, Jaime Siegel, and Eric Reifschneider.  These gentlemen are clearly leaders in their respective companies and the IP industry.  Having access to their viewpoints and information was extremely beneficial to supplement my outlook.

I thought my panel was very interesting and represented opinions that are probably never communicated to this audience.  Michael Cohen and myself are actively involved in some capacity in the secondary market for most of the publicly listed IP investments.  Michael more so on the binary events with the larger cap names.  I tend to focus on the 2-3 years before a suit ever reaches a jury trial.  I recommend to reach Michael for live coverage and opinions on complicated patent litigation - http://www.mdcfinancial.com/index.html.

My recommendations for more spacing between panels.  Most were back to back to back with no break in between.  I would also like to see more focus on damages as I feel that portion was under represented with the majority of the focus being on validity issues.  Having more investors presenting and in attendance would also be very beneficial for a future conference.

I recommend investors to attend future industry conferences to get better insight from the professionals who are actively managing IP in many different ways.