Mr. Smith recently served as the first Administrative Patent Law Judge on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for the new Silicon Valley Office of the Patent & Trademark Office. He is familiar with the PTAB, its post-grant and covered business method patent jurisdiction, and the intricacies of settlement and dispute resolution of these cases, often with parallel Federal Court litigation.

Mr. Smith has served on the mediation and other panels of US District Court for the Northern District of California since the inception of the ADR program there several decades ago. He is currently on the Mediation Panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where early in his career he served as a law clerk to Judge Giles Rich on its predecessor court. He has served, or serves, on several other ADR panels, including for the International Trademark Association, and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Mr. Smith has been continuously named to “The List of the World’s Leading Technology Neutrals” by the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center.

Neil is a prolific speaker and author, on intellectual property and alternative dispute resolution subjects. E.g. “Complex Patent Suits: The Use of Special Masters for Claim Construction” 2, Landslide 1, Oct. 2009 (American Bar Association), Forward and reviews: ADR Advocacy, Strategies, and Practices for Intellectual Property Cases, edited by Harrie Samaris, ABA Books 2011.

Mr. Smith specializes in dispute resolution of patent, trademark, licensing and technology cases, in the federal courts and the Patent & Trademark Office’s Patent Trial & Appeal Board, upon which he served. Mr. Smith is also available to serve as a special or discovery master, expert witness, mock judge, or negotiator, to help parties resolve or handle their disputes or important cases in the courts.

In addition to experience in dispute resolution, Mr. Smith is an experienced and recognized litigator, author, and teacher, on intellectual property and ADR subjects. He has been listed for over 25 years in Best Lawyer, listed in Chambers and Super Lawyers, and was named as IP Litigator of the Year by Managing Intellectual Property.

Ruth V. Glick is a full time domestic and international arbitrator and mediator whose background as a lawyer and businesswoman augments her dispute resolution skills.  With over 25 years’ experience as a dispute resolver, she has mediated and arbitrated a wide variety of domestic and international complex business contract and tort, financial, commercial, technology, crypto, venture capital, trade secrets, securities, labor and employment, real estate, health care and medical device disputes.  She is on the Large and Complex Case panel, the National, Commercial and Labor and Employment Arbitration and Mediation panels of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), as well as the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR).

Ruth is a Fellow and member of peer nominated organizations including, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FIArb), College of Commercial Arbitrators (CCA), International Academy of Mediators (IAM), and National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals (NADN).  She is named yearly as a Northern California Super Lawyer and one of Best Lawyers of Northern California.

Throughout her career, Ruth has been in the forefront of the development and advancement of alternative methods of dispute resolution encouraging full participation of all practitioners.  She is a past Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association, founder of WIDR (Women in Dispute Resolution), and a former liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.  She has also served as President of the Mediation Society of San Francisco, President of California Dispute Resolution Council, and on the Boards of the CCA and IAM.

Ruth is currently on the Board of Directors of California Arbitration (CalArb) and a member of the Council of the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR) where she is co-chair of the Mediation committee and member of the Arbitration and Law and Practice standing committees.  See www.ruthvglick.com