2021 PILT Seminar Speakers and Materials
Dean and Professor of Law, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Orlando, Florida
Deidré A. Keller is the Dean of the Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law in Orlando, Florida. Prior to joining FAMU, she was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law where she taught for ten years. Dean Keller writes at the intersection of intellectual property, personhood theory, critical race theory, and the Constitution. Prior to teaching, Keller practiced law in Atlanta, Georgia specializing in intellectual property counseling and procurement.
Senior Counsel, Wood Herron & Evans, LLP, Cincinnati, OH
Ken Germain has more than 45 years of varied experience in the trademark/unfair competition field and is a former full-time law professor. He focuses his practice on trademark counseling, consulting and litigation, including Early Neutral Evaluation. Ken is often retained as an expert witness on issues relating to trademarks and unfair competition, working on cases involving some of the nation’s largest companies in high-stakes, cutting-edge cases. He has testified in court over 15 times.
Partner, Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis, Cleveland, OH
As a former General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer, David Croft, a Partner with Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland, Ohio, offers a unique perspective on business law and understanding the needs of his clients. Chair of the Blockchain/Cryptocurrency practice group, David directs the firm’s multidisciplinary approach to representing clients in all aspects of cybersecurity, data privacy, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrency, including smart contracts, tokenized security offerings, government regulation, inventions, trademarks, brand protection, trade secrets, copyrights, commercialization, mining, energy procurement and licensing. David is a prolific speaker on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, blockchain/cryptocurrency, and medical cannabis.
Chief Information Security Officer, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio
Robert Eckman serves as Chief Information Security Officer at Kent State University where he leads an amazing team of information security and identity and access management professionals to protect the State of Ohio’s 2nd largest university in all things security. Prior to this role, Bob served as Security Principal and vCISO at MCPc Inc. a secured technology logistics and data protection company headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. There, Bob guided MCPc’s cybersecurity services, solutions and staff. He has over 25 years of experience in security, technology and project/program management.
Founder, 4iNNO Innovation and Growth Consultancy, Cincinnati, OH
Larry practiced IP law almost 31 years for Procter & Gamble. His practice included important aspects of U.S. and international patent preparation, prosecution, appeals, freedom to practice, portfolio management, licensing, infringement opinions, validity opinions, M&A due diligence, counseling, trade secret and trademark/trade dress matters. Larry’s experience includes litigation and ADR. Larry has a strong engineering background and worked in a broad range of technology areas including paper products, cleaning products, diapers, sanitary napkins, packaging, control systems, manufacturing processes and machinery.
Managing Associate, Frost Brown Todd, Cincinnati, Ohio
Julie has been a practicing patent attorney for over 16 years and currently serves as Managing Associate in Frost Brown Todd’s Intellectual Property practice. Julie focuses her practice in the areas of patent preparation and prosecution in the both the United States and globally, development and management of IP strategies, preparing freedom to practice and patentability opinions as well as reviewing and negotiating a variety of IP-related agreements. Prior to joining the firm, Julie served as in-house counsel for the intellectual property practice at The Procter & Gamble Company where she crafted and implemented IP Strategies in support of P&G’s Billion Dollar Brands. She also spent time at the University of Cincinnati where she engaged in biomedical research for the Department of Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine.
Associate, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Dayton, Ohio
Zach’s practice focuses on privacy and data security. Specifically, Zach assists clients in the areas of privacy compliance, defense litigation, class action defense and guidance in the aftermath of an information security event, including data breach. Zach has experience advising clients with respect to FTC investigations, federal privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FCRA, TCPA, and GLBA, as well as state laws governing personally identifiable information. For his clients, he also provides regulatory analysis, risk management, policy development, training and audits. Zach speaks and writes regularly on cutting-edge data privacy and cybersecurity issues and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional in the field of United States laws and regulations.
Bruce Martino is an attorney and privacy professional. He has nearly 20 years experience working on client privacy issues while with LexisNexis, IBM and GOJO Industries. Bruce is admitted to practice in New York and Ohio. He is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and holds CIPP/G and CIPM certifications from the IAPP. He has spoken and written about privacy issues, most recently for the Association of Corporate Counsel, Northeast Ohio Chapter on European data transfers. Bruce earned his B.S. at the City University of New York, John Jay College and his J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law.
Senior Fellow, Royal Holloway University of London, England
Robert Carolina is a Senior Visiting Fellow with the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University of London, where he has taught legal and regulatory aspects of cyber security since 1999. He is the author of the “law and regulation” chapter of CyBOK: the Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge. Robert maintains a legal practice with Origin Ltd in London. He has extensive experience advising on ICT-related commercial transactions and related legal and regulatory risks, including data protection, interception of communications, and online banking and payment systems. Robert is a graduate of the University of Dayton, Georgetown University Law Center, and the London School of Economics.
