Anti-Suit Injunctions in Intellectual Property Litigation

Steve Akerley has litigated and tried patent cases for 30 years. From 1992 through 2019, Steve was in private practice, representing both patent owners and accused infringers in cases across the US, before the International Trade Commission, and before numerous international tribunals.  In 2020, Steve became the global head of litigation at InterDigital, a research and development company focused on wireless and video technologies. In 2021, Steve was also named head of intellectual property at InterDigital and now oversees strategy and management of the company’s large, global patent portfolio.

Tom Brown is the head of IP litigation at Dell. In that role, Tom manages litigation across the globe in all areas of IP, with a focus on patent litigation. Tom also supports non-litigation disputes and licensing. Tom also leads Dell's IP policy efforts, and is a frequent contributor at industry conferences and events. Tom also serves as co-chair of IPO\s Post-Grant Committee, and previously co-chaired its Litigation and Remedies Committee and its Trade Secrets Committee. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Alan D. Lourie Boston IP American Inn of Court, and previously served on the steering committee of the Sedona Conference Working Group 10 on Patent Litigation. Before joining Dell, Tom led IP litigation at EMC Corporation, and before that, he was a principal at Fish & Richardson. Before law school, Tom worked as a software design engineer for Microsoft.

Jorge L. Contreras is the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, and will serve as a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science during 2023. Prior to entering academia, Professor Contreras was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where he practiced intellectual property transactional law in Boston, Washington DC and London. Prof. Contreras’s academic research focuses on intellectual property, antitrust law, technical standardization and science policy. He has published more than 150 academic articles and book chapters and has written or edited twelve books including the 2-volume Cambridge Handbook of Technical Standardization Law (NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017, 2019).  His scholarship has received numerous awards and recognition, including, most recently, the Patent & Trademark Office Society’s 2021 Rossman Memorial Award and the University of Utah’s 2020 Distinguished Research Award. Professor Contreras has appeared before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission, and has served as an expert witness before courts across North America, South America and Europe.  His latest book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA, was recognized by the NY Times as one of the top eleven nonfiction books of Fall 2021 and selected as the Best Patent Law Book of the Year by the UK-based IPKat blog.  He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the former co-chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists.  He received his JD from Harvard Law School, earned his BSEE and BA in English at Rice University and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Karl Gross is involved in several areas of intellectual property with a particular emphasis in patent litigation and prosecution in the mechanical arts. He has successfully represented plaintiffs and defendants in district courts across the country and at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. He has also been involved in several post-issuance reexaminations and inter partes review proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and has successfully prosecuted numerous patents in the United States and aboard. Mr. Gross represents clients ranging from international corporations to individual inventors who are involved in a variety of technologies including internal combustion engines and automotive engineering, filters and filtration products, hydraulic systems, communications technologies and software, medical devices and electrical connectors and components. In addition to his litigation and prosecution work, Mr. Gross also renders opinions on intellectual property issues, advises on developing and managing intellectual property portfolios and strategy, conducts due diligence investigations, and negotiates licenses and other agreements.  Prior to attending law school, he worked as an industrial and design engineer with a corporation that designed and manufactured high vacuum pumps and compressors.