Effective Use of Patent Agents for In-House and Outside Counsel - Part 1

Karen Cochran is the chief IP counsel at Shell, leading the company’s global IP department in support of IP strategies and related licensing activities. Karen began her career as a chemist at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, and Merck Pharmaceuticals. Following law school, she reentered the pharmaceutical industry as a patent attorney and later joined AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. Karen assumed roles of increasing responsibility while with AstraZeneca, including head of Neuroscience IP, leading a global team from the company’s Swedish offices. Karen subsequently joined DuPont in 2012 where she led both IP and commercial legal teams prior to becoming DuPont’s chief IP counsel and head of IP Litigation. She is a member of IPO’s Board of Directors, serving as president. Karen has also served on the board of Association for Women in Science (AWIS), an organization committed to the advancement of women in STEM.

Carey Jordan is a partner in the Vorys Houston office and chair of the intellectual property group. She advises large-scale clients on patent prosecution and global intellectual property (IP) portfolio management, agreements (technology transfer, joint development and other research agreements), licenses, transactions involving IP and risk consulting.  Carey also has significant experience in crafting and conducting effective and efficient IP due diligence for investments, acquisitions and divestitures.  Although experienced in multiple technology areas, her personal sweet spots are in the chemicals and materials science arenas. Carey received her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center. She received her M.S. and B.S. magna cum laude from Clemson University. Carey's personal passion is to encourage women to study science and engineering.  For example, at Clemson University, her alma mater, Carey has established a scholarship campaign to aid women studying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) obtain their degrees and pursue careers in STEM or IP.

Kelly McGlashen is Director of Patents at Robert Bosch LLC. 

Valerie Moore, Ph.D. is a registered patent agent who focuses her practice on domestic and foreign patent preparation and prosecution, as well as portfolio management, relating to chemistry, materials, and life sciences. Valerie’s technical and patent experience spans areas including nanotechnology, materials engineering, polymers and surfactants, surface science, corrosion chemistry, catalysis, upstream and downstream oil and gas chemistry, mining, sensors, bioimaging, biomedical implants, mathematical modeling of data, and integrating systems with mathematical modeling.

Angela Parsons, Ph.D., has been a Patent Agent for 25 years, starting her practice at a very small IP boutique before moving to Fish & Richardson. Angela focuses her practice on all aspects of life science patent prosecution, both U.S. and abroad, as well as due diligence, patentability opinions, and invalidity opinions. Her clients include universities and research institutes, start-up companies, and large companies that operate in the pharma and life sciences space.

Connie Pielech is a Patent Agent at Shell USA, Inc.