She has experience in strategy, culture change, developing performance measures, team building, compensation analysis and leadership/workforce development. She has also worked with small businesses to provide comprehensive financial solutions, identifying inefficiencies and improving organizational effectiveness. She currently holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources designation from the Society for Human Resource Management and is pursuing the CFA designation from the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute.

MBA- Finance, University of Houston
BS- Psychology, University of Houston

Vicki Williams joined Gelb in 2011 as a Senior Consultant with extensive strategic marketing experience.  Her focus areas include Corporate Identity and Branding, M&A Transition Communications and Branding, and Project Communications and Change Management.  She has worked with several companies to change their corporate identity and develop strategies to incorporate acquisitions into existing brands.  She has worked with several sales teams to develop web-based dashboards and implement sales tools that include Customer Relationship Management Packages.   

Vicki has also developed advertising campaigns and trade show strategies for both small companies and large multinational corporations.  She has been involved in several website rebranding and restructuring projects for large corporations, as well as website development for start-up corporations. 

Vicki is a member of the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) and the AMA (American Marketing Association).  She has also served as the Treasurer for the World Energy Cities Partnership – a partnership of global energy cities that is chaired by the Mayor of Houston.

Education
●     BA, Management from Texas A&M University

Click Here to continue reading The New Role of Surveys in Assessing Damages in Patent Infrigement Cases

 During his masters Sonal served as V.P. Logistics at Graduate Indian Students Organization in University of Houston. Sonal brings passion and leadership qualities along with his technical skills to the group. 

Education

MS, Computer Science, University of Hosuton, 2011 BE, Computer Science and Engineering, R.C.E.T Bhilai, India, 2008

Background: Federal courts are moving toward assessing damages in patent infringement cases with the (newer) key criterion of consumer demand generated by the patents at issue rather than the traditional Entire Market Value Rule (EMVR).

Damages based on EMVR have been set aside in such cases as Cornell Univ. v. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Gateway Inc. Numerous legal authorities have discussed how decisions by Circuit Judge Randall Rader, among others, are modifying the entire market value rule toward considerations of consumer demand.

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In Cornell University, for example, the trial judge excluded an  economist’s testimony because “despite the court’s repeated exhortations to supply economic proof linking any proposed entire market value royalty base to the market and consumer demand, [the expert] simply could not identify any reliable evidence to support his position.”

This emerging trend suggests integrating the expertise of economists with that of survey experts in supporting or defending a damage claim in a patent infringement case.

Based on my work in helping to rebut damage claims against such technology clients as Apple, Amazon and Dell, I suggest several guidelines for the use of surveys in damage claims based on patent infringement.

The first is: Accurately define the place of the patent-in-suit in the final product. I’ve rebutted where surveys claiming damages for software patents that have presented concepts to consumers that “over-reach” what the patent actually contributes.

Every survey requires asking unbiased questions of a relevant population but that’s just the basics. A very recent decision (April 2011) in the E.D. of Texas illustrates my first point where in Fractus, S. A., v. Samsung Electronics, two consumer surveys were excluded because they over-reached, that is, measured reaction to the product, an antenna, as a whole instead of  focusing the survey on the specific technology in the patent-at-issue.

Second: Any survey on consumer demand will be subject to searching scrutiny by a rebuttal expert. This is important for patent attorneys to appreciate as they may not be as well versed in the “battle of the survey experts” as are trademark attorneys. Working toward a “bullet-proof” survey calls for a researcher who is highly experienced in litigation surveys.

Third: As in all surveys for litigation, the patent infringement survey is most open to criticism if it fails to accurately determine the relevant population. Survey experts need to be careful about defining the relevant population. For example, in a recent patent case I participated in for the defendants, the plaintiff’s expert queried retail consumers but failed to appreciate that the defendant’s principal customers were businesses: the purchasers were chief information or chief technology officers.

The survey experts in patent infringement litigation should be well versed in advanced statistical analysis, especially conjoint analysis, which examines how purchasers or decision-makers “trade off” various product attributes.

Step One

Experts should also be prepared to address the possibility that a given attribute or feature should not be assumed a priori to be a decision driver. In cases where the opposing attorney’s expert may challenge the very inclusion of a given feature in a survey, it may be advisable to utilize “heuristic methods” as a first step.
Heuristic methods, a decision shortcut: particularly suited to conservative models

A decision-centered approach yields a conservative estimate of patent value because only respondents who identify a given attribute as important and measure it in a way material to the patent will contribute to the calculated value. Heuristic methods ask about actual behavior, as opposed to hypothetical choices. Thus, if respondents qualified for the survey based on their reported purchases or interest in a particular product category, this approach may have more face validity.

Step Two

Conjoint analysis, a 30-year-old statistical technique which results in hard data and has been used successfully in damages cases, including

• Tivo  v. EchoStar, in Eastern District of Texas
• Barbara Schwab et al. v. Philip Morris USA, in Eastern District of N.Y.
• U-Haul Int’l  v. Jartran Inc., in District of Arizona
• Robert Kearns v. Ford Motor Co, in Eastern District of Michigan
• Continental Airlines v. American Airlines, in Central District of California
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What is so useful about it?

• Conjoint Analysis forces people to make trade-offs
  ‒      This gives much better data than simply asking people the importance of each component of the product
  The results are better in that they predict future outcomes more accurately, and there are greater (and more believable) differences between features in their importance to buyers

From a recent patent infringement damages survey that I rebutted: “… on average virtually all of the features studied for the various ____ devices were rated as important based on the monadic rating scales.”
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In this presentation, I’ve outlined three general guidelines for the new world of surveys in patent litigation, especially those involving technology, and shown what I consider to be the best path to measuring consumer demand for the patent-at-issue. Naturally, in any specific case, the requirements may vary to some degree from these concepts.

 ggelb@gelbconsulting.com

 Beth has experience in building marketing programs and processes that increase revenue and profitability for Fortune 500 firms to privately held startups. Beth’s breadth of marketing experience includes branding, marketing strategy, market research, process improvement, lead generation, managing advertising campaigns, and event planning. Beth presented on the topic of Global Marketing at a past Gulf Publication’s Marketing in the Oilfield Conference.

EDUCATION:

BS, Marketing, emphasis in international business, Missouri State University, 1990

Barron has experience in market planning and implementation, strategy development,  operations, alliance management and public affairs.  Barron was most recently Director of Government Relations at Travelport, a  global travel technology company and served in a similar capacity at CA Technologies.  Her prior roles included Director of Strategic Alliances and  in global operations management at Landmark Graphics, a division of Halliburton.

EDUCATION: BS, Political Science, Austin College
MA, Public Affairs, LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin
MBA, Global Management, University of Phoenix

The successful candidate will be able to apply his/her experience in applications development to enhance our online reporting capabilities.  In addition, this person will help administer and expand our usage of CRM, both internally and in delivering customer projects.

 If you are looking to take on the challenge of delivering technical solutions in a challenging and fast-paced professional services environment, we want to hear from you!

Desired Skills & Experience

This position requires experience with:

• Object oriented design
• Relational Databases
• .NET, C#
• AJAX
• MS SQL
• ava, JavaScript, PHP. APEX experience is a plus
• Experience with CRM implementation, Salesforce.com, basic network administration, desktop support, and solving technical issues would also be an advantage.

 Continue Reading Conjoint Analysis Application in Healthcare Here