Plenary Panel: To Patent or Not to Patent?

Livestream: Tuesday, July 14th at 7am PT/10am ET/4pm CET/11pm JT

To survive in today’s globalized market, companies must continue to innovate and generate valuable intellectual property.  One way of protecting intellectual property is through patents, which can protect novel inventions.  In this session, we will discuss the benefits of patenting, as well as its intersection with Standards and Open Source.  The panelists will draw on their personal experience as inventors and their thoughts on what makes for a good patentable invention. The panel will compare and contrast various approaches to IP protection around the world (Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific). The panel will also discuss helpful tips for seeking a patent grant.

Cecilia Metra, Bologna University

Cecilia Metra is the President 2019 of the IEEE Computer Society. She is a full professor and the Deputy-President of the Engineering School at the University of Bologna, Italy, where she has worked since 1991, and from which she received a PhD in electronic engineering and computer science. In 2002, she was visiting faculty consultant for Intel Corporation.She was a member of the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors (2013-2017), the Vice President of Member and Geographic Activities 2017, and the Vice-President for Technical and Conference Activities 2014.She is Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (2018, 2020) and she was Editor in Chief of Computing Now (2013-2016) and Associate Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Computers (2007-2012). She is on the IEEE The Institute Advisory Board as well as on editorial boards of several journals, including IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Design&Test, and the Journal of Electronic Testing.She contributed to numerous IEEE international conferences, symposia, workshops as general/program chair/co-chair (14 times), vice-general/program chair/co-chair (6 times), topic/track chair (34 times), and technical program committee member (90+ times). She has published extensively on design for test and reliability of integrated circuits and systems. Her research has received public and private funding (from companies such as Intel Corporation, STMicroelectronics, etc.) at national and international levels.She is an IEEE Fellow, IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Member, and a member of the IEEE Honor Society IEEE-HKN. She has received two Meritorious Service Awards and five Certificates of Appreciation from the IEEE Computer Society.

Hironori Kasahara, Waseda University

Hironori Kasahara is a Senior Executive Vice President at Waseda University.  He was President of the Computer Society in 2018, 2017 -2019 member of the Executive Committee, and Board of Governors from 2009-2014. He is an IEEE and IPSJ Fellow, a Computer Society Golden Core Member, IEEE Eta Kappa Nu professional member, a member of the Engineering Academy of Japan and the Science Council of Japan. He received a PhD in 1985 from Waseda University, joined its faculty in 1986, has been a professor of computer science since 1997, and director of the Advanced Multicore Research Institute since 2004. He was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign’s Center for Supercomputing R&D. He has served as a chair or member of 250 society and government committees including chair of the CS Planning Committee, Constitution & Bylaws Committee, Multicore STC, and CS Japan chapter. Kasahara has been associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Computers, vice PC chair of the 1996 ENIAC 50th Anniversary International Conference on Supercomputing, general chair of LCPC, PC member of SC, PACT, and ASPLOS, board member of the IEEE Tokyo section, and member of the Earth Simulator and K supercomputer committees. Kasahara received the Spirit of IEEE Computer Society Award, IFAC World Congress Young Author Prize, Sakai Special Research Award, and the Japanese Minister’s Science and Technology Prize. He has led Japanese national projects on parallelizing compilers and embedded multicores, and has presented 218 papers, 186 invited talks, and 52 patents. His research has appeared in 615 newspaper and web articles.

Gordana Velikic, RT-RK Institute for Computer Based Systems

Dr. Gordana Velikić was born in Novi Sad, and she acquired her doctorate at the University of Rochester, USA. She was a deputy director at the Center For Future Health at the same University. At this time she is responsible for scientific programs in RT-RK and is in charge of projects which shape today’s technology. She has organized many conferences and is a member of Technology Program Committee of ICCE2020. Within IEEE’s CESoc she is VP for Educational Activities.

Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Labs
Panel Chair

Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Distinguished Technologist and IEEE Computer Society president 2014. A catalyst of change and a technical leader in systems software. He is currently a director of the Systems and Software group at Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA (1998-). He worked at the OSF Research Institute in Cambridge, MA (1994-1998) and at the Mihajlo Pupin Institute in Belgrade, Serbia (1983-1991). He received his PhD from University of Kaiserslautern, Germany (1993); and his MSc/BSc from Belgrade University, Serbia (1986/1983). He was a technical director of the Open Cirrus Cloud Computing Testbed (2007-2011), which had academic and industrial sites in the US, Europe, and Asia. He has published over 200 papers and 2 books; He has 50 granted patents and 136 patent applications. He is an IEEE Fellow (2010), ACM Distinguished Engineer (2008), and HKN and USENIX member. More information can be found at https:/dejan.milojicic.com.