Licensing Your Ideas and Inventions
Thursday, April 17, 2008
6 to 8 pm; reception to follow
Sidney Frank Hall
185 Meeting Street
(between Thayer & Brown Streets)
Providence, Rhode Island 02912

Cost
$15 BFE Members
$25 Non-Members
Students/Sponsors Free
On-line registration for this event is now closed. 
A limited number of on-site registrations will be accepted.

In a traditional business model, proprietors typically develop their own products and sell them directly to customers.  In an increasingly emerging business model, proprietors hire others to to create products and license others to sell their products and services for them.  In fact, the licensing of intellectual property has exploded into a multi-billion-dollar industry.  So how can you take full advantage of your intellectual property or product innovation without risking more than you bargained for?  Learn the ins and outs of licensing agreements during this roundtable discussion between three experienced panelists and an expert moderator who'll answer all the questions you've ever had about licensing but were afraid to ask.

Host: Richard Gamache, Partner, Weingarten Schurgin Gagnebin & Lebovici
Moderator: Roger Hood, Partner, Duffy Sweeney & Scott

Panelists
Jane Ritson-Parsons
Group Executive, International Marketing & Branding
Jane joined Hasbro in 1993 with the task of strategically expanding and developing Hasbro's core brands into lifestyle and promotional categories in the international marketplace.  In 2001, Jane was promoted to President of Hasbro Properties Group with worldwide responsibility for further extending Hasbro's brands into a variety of entertainment platforms, publishing, promotions and consumer products categories.  HPG has enjoyed wide-ranging success leveraging many of the Company's core brands.  Hasbro's Action Man brand boasts a broad licensing program throughout Europe and Australia.  In 2003, HPG successfully established My Little Pony as a lifestyle brand, with programs in publishing, apparel, footwear, bedding and more.  Other key Hasbro brands with successful licensing programs include Monopoly, Transformers, Tonka and Playskool, among others.
View Jane Ritson-Parsons' Presentation

Fred Spector
Fred Spector of Frederic Spector Design Studio specializes in commercial and residential furniture, lighting and tabletop products.  His studio designs with a keen sense of trends, as well as cultural and commercial awareness, and his products are sold in catalogs and retail stores throughout North America, Europe and Asia.  Clients include Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Smith & Hawken, Restoration Hardware, Bassett, Reed and Barton, Nambe, Dansk and many US and Canadian wholesale furniture manufacturers.  Fred holds numerous design patents and has over 100 licensed products on the market at any given time.

Lolita Healy
CEO & Designer, Lolita Glassware
Since the age of 12, when she filed for her first copyright, Lolita (Tracy Healy) has been a creative thinker with big dreams.  In 2001, she launched the highly successful Lolita "Love my Martini" collection, hand-painting martini and wine glasses for three years before licensing the line in 2003.  To date, over five million glasses have been sold and, with her fans behind her, sales this year alone could exceed $52 million and three million units.  Lolita is involved in licensing projects worldwide, penetrating markets in Australia and the UK while also expanding the brand's product categories to include fashion items, her own vodka brand and her new how-to-entertain book entitled "Martini Moments."  She has just finished a whirlwind media tour to highlight the glassware nationwide.  Lolita's blend of fun, collectible designs, along with her fashion-forward thinking, inspired her trademarked tagline "What is your moment?"  It is this thinking that has appealed to thousands of Lolita collectors everywhere to find the newest Lolita product.

Roger Hood
Roger is a Partner at Duffy Sweeney & Scott Ltd, where he focuses on intellectual property and technology law.  He joined the firm after a 17-year legal career as senior counsel at global communications and electronics leader Motorola, Inc.  Today, he works with multi-national companies and their principals on legal matters at the intersection of technology and business.
View Roger Hood's Presentation

Richard Gamache
Rich is a Partner at Weingarten Schurgin Gagnebin & Lebovici LLP, an intellectual property law firm in Boston, where he is primarily engaged in patent prosecution and related matters.  Rich's areas of technical expertise include a broad range of electrical, electronic and computer-related technologies, including systems, semiconductors and software.  His intellectual property experience also includes patent infringement and validity studies, and trademark and copyright practice.