This presentation uses litigation and settlement data to examine how patent type, timing, and strategy influence settlement outcomes, retained exclusivity, and overall leverage across pharma patent litigation.
Join this session for a review of recent trade secret cases and outcomes across key jurisdictions in the US and further afield; examine how reasonable measure standards have evolved, and what courts are now accepting.
Gain firsthand insight into how judges from the PTAB and federal courts in key jurisdictions are approaching pharmaceutical and biotech patent disputes. This session offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from the decision-makers on litigation strategy, evidentiary expectations, and what most influences outcomes in complex patent cases.
Kent A. Jordan is a Director in the Wilmington, Delaware law firm of Richards, Layton & Finger. Previously, since 2006, he served as a United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit. Before that, he was a United States District Judge for the District of Delaware from 2002 to 2006. Judge Jordan received a B.A. in Economics in 1981 from Brigham Young University and a J.D. in 1984 from Georgetown University. He was an Assistant United States Attorney and head of the Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware. Later, he served as an officer and as a member of the boards of directors of privately held businesses and was a partner in a law firm. He is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University and has served as President of the Board of Trustees of the American Inns of Court Foundation, as well as on the boards of other non-profit organizations.
In light of recent changes in PTAB practice under new USPTO Director John A. Squires, in-house teams are reassessing disclosure risk, IPR exposure, and long-term enforceability, particularly for manufacturing processes, algorithms, and data-driven know-how. This session focuses on how companies are making these calls in practice, and how patent strategy is directly shaping trade secret risk in later disputes.
Damon Gupta is a Director, Patent Counsel at Spark Therapeutics, Inc., a leader in gene therapy and member of the Roche Group. With over a decade of experience in intellectual property (IP) law and a background in molecular biology, Damon advises biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies on patent strategy, IP transactions, and risk mitigation. At Spark, Damon leads efforts to protect proprietary assets, including trade secrets, manage IP disputes, and provides IP support to cross-functional teams, including R&D, manufacturing, and corporate transactions. Damon holds a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law, an M.S. from Baylor College of Medicine, and a B.S. from The Ohio State University.
Julie is a Senior IP Counsel at Nestlé S.A. She has worked for multiple business units in her 14+ year career with Nestlé, including Coffee, Nestlé Health Science, and PetCare. Julie significantly contributed to developing and deploying Nestlé's trade secret protection program. Before joining Nestle, she was a Corporate Patent Counsel at Pfizer Inc.
Recent court decisions in Skinny Label cases show that liability increasingly focuses on post-launch conduct and real-world use, not label text alone. A panel of leading in-house counsel and litigators with innovative, biosimilar, and regulatory perspectives will address shifting litigation strategy.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the trade secret threat landscape. As companies deploy internal AI tools, enterprise search, co-pilots, and agentic systems, the risks posed are increasingly subtle, scalable, and harder-to-detect. Employees can extract and synthesise sensitive information without direct access to underlying repositories, and at a speed and scale that outpaces many legacy legal technical and compliance controls. This session will examine the risks posed by internal use of artificial intelligence, consider how AI is changing the mechanics of trade secret misappropriation, and question how legal, technical, and governance frameworks must evolve in response.
Erik Laykin is the CEO and Managing Partner of Global Data Risk LLC. He manages complex investigations and disputes in a variety of industries including financial services, technology and international trade on behalf of litigants, corporations and government agencies. Mr. Laykin serves as an expert witness, investigator, Special Master, and Independent Neutral in cases involving intellectual property, cyber crime, information technology failures, geopolitical risk, financial services risk, valuations, eDiscovery, corporate espionage and other complex disputes which arise from the usage of digital data, computers, software, networks and the Internet.
Mr. Laykin has been recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on Trade Secret theft and investigations and has had over 100 expert witness appointments.
Joseph D’Angelo is a results driven legal partner with more than 15 years of corporate legal department experience at Fortune 500 companies. Extensive experience assisting businesses with intellectual property, litigation, technology licensing, complex negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, commercial law, and supplier matters.
Senior executive with deep experience in environmental markets, capital markets, financial technology, blockchain, digital supply chains, and food traceability. Specializes in corporate development, revenue strategy, commercial growth, and scaling technology solutions across global industries, with a strong track record in sales leadership, partner engagement, and investor support.
