Join LAIPLA’s In-House Committee and leading in-house and outside counsel, investors, entrepreneurs, and technology commercialization professionals at Caltech’s beautiful Athenaeum Club for a focused program exploring how emerging technologies move from promising inventions to valuable, financeable enterprises.
Intended for attorneys, founders, and others in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, the program will examine the legal, strategic, and commercial decisions that shape the path from innovation to market.
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9:00-9:55 AM | Registration and Networking
Enjoy a light breakfast and network with colleagues, investors, innovators, and others in the SoCal entrepreneurship ecosystem.
9:55 AM | Opening Remarks
From Invention to Asset: Building an IP Portfolio That Creates Enterprise Value
10:00-10:50 AM
What transforms an innovative idea into a valuable intellectual property asset? This panel will explore how companies, founders, and their counsel identify high-value intellectual property and develop IP strategies that support commercialization, investment, and long-term enterprise value. Panelists will discuss how to distinguish commercially significant IP from merely patentable inventions; align patent strategy with business objectives; develop effective international patent strategies; and build portfolios positioned to withstand diligence by investors, licensees, and potential acquirers.
From IP to Enterprise: Partnerships, Licensing, and the Path to Commercialization
11:00-11:50 AM
Strong intellectual property is only the beginning. This panel will examine the people, partnerships, and transactions that transform innovative technologies into viable commercial opportunities. Panelists will address strategies for structuring and negotiating research, development, and commercialization relationships; allocating intellectual property rights arising from industry and university partnerships; and navigating the unique challenges presented by emerging technologies. The panel will also examine how organizations across various industries evaluate technology transfer opportunities, manage risk, preserve freedom to operate, and create pathways for successful commercialization.
What Makes an Innovation Investable? An Investor’s View from Technology to Company
Lunch Fireside | 12:30-1:20 PM
What separates a compelling technology from an investable company, and what is the role of IP? This panel will provide an investor’s perspective on evaluating early-stage companies and the factors that can transform promising science and technology into attractive investment opportunities. The discussion will explore how investors assess the strength and defensibility of a company’s technology and IP, commercial opportunity, management team, competitive differentiation, regulatory and technical risk, freedom to operate, licensing obligations, capital requirements, and value-creating milestones. The panel will also consider an important question for founders and their counsel: Where can lawyers create the greatest value in building an investable company?
PANELISTS
Daniel Broderick
Manager, Office of Technology Transfer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Daniel is the Manager of the Office of Technology Transfer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an operating division of the California Institute of Technology. He is responsible for the management and negotiation of intellectual property matters ranging from patent filing decisions, patent prosecution management, licensing negotiations, startup assistance, NASA compliance, and maintaining and monitoring license agreements.
Dan began his career designing microprocessor systems at Motorola and telecommunications hardware at Rockwell, before moving into technology transfer at Northwestern and UC San Diego. He then led Business Development at Wesley Jessen Vision Care, managing IP and negotiating medical device and pharmaceutical agreements, and later at Apovia Inc., a San Diego biotech developing recombinant vaccines.
Dave de Csepel
CEO & Executive Director, Alliance for SoCal Innovation
In addition to Dave’s leadership of the Alliance, he serves as Chairman of the TCA Venture Group and formerly held the same position at the Pasadena Angels. Dave is a serial entrepreneur and a founding member and owner of Veritas Realty Investments, where he led design, project management, and sales for a portfolio of residential projects across Greater Los Angeles.
Dave also brings media and communications expertise from leadership roles at Discovery Networks, Turner Entertainment, and ESPN, and he currently serves as an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
Fred Farina
Chief Innovation and Corporate Partnerships Officer, Caltech
Fred’s responsibilities include commercializing inventions made at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL/NASA) through the creation of new startup ventures and partnerships with established companies. His office is responsible for evaluating inventions, supervising patent prosecution and portfolio management, negotiating licensing deals with industry, assisting Caltech/JPL entrepreneurs with the creation of new startup companies and establishing research collaborations with industry.
Prior to joining Caltech, Fred worked as a research engineer in the GPS field at JPL and the University of Miami. He subsequently joined a law firm where he prosecuted patent applications on various technologies before the U.S. and European patent offices.
Graham Cole, Ph.D.
Director, Intellectual Property, City of Hope
Graham is the Director of Intellectual Property at City of Hope where, with the Office of Technology Licensing team, he provides a broad spectrum of IP and contract related strategic advice in support of City of Hope’s efforts to license its early-stage technologies. Among other responsibilities, he oversees an international portfolio of patents and patent applications from the Beckman Research Institute.
Prior to joining City of Hope, he worked in the patent litigation group at several nationally recognized law firms representing clients primarily in the lice science industry and obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Physics from UCLA.
Lee Gordon
Chairman, Pasadena Angels
Lee has nearly twenty years of experience representing consumers, investors, employees, and others in complex legal matters. With honors graduate degrees from Harvard Law School and UCLA Anderson School of Management, he practiced at leading law firms including Gibson Dunn and Howard Rice. He spent over a decade as a partner at Hagens Berman, where he represented clients in class actions and commercial matters including IP litigation.
In recent years, Lee has been actively engaged in the startup and investment community. He serves as Chairman of Pasadena Angels, part of the TCA Venture Group, where he evaluates and supports early-stage companies. He has also served as a Co-Director of FoundersBoost LA, a nonprofit pre-accelerator supporting early-stage founders.
Mike Gilvary
Partner, Phoenix Growth Capital
Mike is a General Partner at Phoenix Growth Capital and a Partner at the Ember Company, where he focuses on deploying venture debt and warrant-based capital into early-stage consumer and DTC companies. He is an experienced entrepreneur and executive with a track record spanning healthcare, entertainment, and consumer retail markets, with expertise in business strategy, management, wearables, technical product development, medical devices, and sales and marketing strategy. He has mentored founders through CUNY Firefly Innovations and CUNY Startups.
Prior to his current roles, Mike was a med tech founder and spent nearly a decade at Stryker. He also teaches healthcare entrepreneurship at the MBA level.
Tiffany Li
Counsel, E-Advanced and New Business, Honda
At American Honda, Tiffany leads multimillion-dollar transactions within its emerging technology and new ventures legal department. She regularly advises business leaders on new products throughout the product lifecycle and counsels key stakeholders on a wide range of investments, helping drive Honda's strategic growth in groundbreaking products and cutting-edge technologies.
Previously, Tiffany worked as an attorney at Quarles & Brady and Norton Rose Fulbright.
Sarah Cork, Ph.D.
Partner, Cork Maloney LLP
Sarah is a patent practitioner with over thirteen years of experience advising life sciences companies on a wide range of intellectual property matters. She leverages her Ph.D. in Neuroscience and professional training in translational biologic drug discovery to bring scientific depth to her legal practice. Her technical expertise spans a broad array of cutting-edge technologies across the biotech, pharma, diagnostic, and medtech industries.
Sarah spent more than a decade practicing high-stakes life sciences patent and commercial matters at leading international law firms before recently starting her own firm to focus on serving early-stage companies with patent strategy and other matters. She is a past President of LAIPLA, an invited SBIR reviewer, and she supports diligence for life sciences investment opportunities.
