Sustainability: Keeping Vanilla Growing
November 5th and 6th, 2013, Crowne Plaza - Jamesburg, NJ
Patents and Trade Secrets: What is the Best Way
To Protect Proprietary Technology?
Janet E. Reed
Potter Anderson and Corroon, LLP
Wilmington, DE
Innovation is at the heart of any company’s competitive advantage. Research and Development represents a significant investment for many companies. As a company’s R&D investment grows, it becomes increasingly important to understand how to capitalize on and protect the intellectual property value of the innovation that arises from it. Two basic forms of intellectual property protection are available to protect technology innovation – patents and trade secrets. When is it best to seek patent protection, what are the requirements for patents and what is the price? On the other hand, is it possible to maintain the company’s proprietary information as a trade secret? What are the requirements, and what are the risks? This presentation will help managers, scientists and business people understand the interplay between patents and trade secrets, and to make strategic decisions on how to utilize each.
Dr. Janet E. Reed is a partner at Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP, an eminent Delaware law firm, where she heads the firm’s intellectual property transactional and counseling practice. She focuses her practice on patents related to biotechnological inventions in medicine, food, agriculture and environmental sciences.
Janet’s clients span a variety of industries, and include large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, agricultural and food companies, and academic institutions. She represents clients in domestic and foreign patent prosecution, patent portfolio management and strategic planning, evaluation of new technology, drafting of license and other commercialization agreements, conducting and responding to due diligence inquiries, and preparation of opinions on patentability, infringement and freedom to operate.
Janet holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rutgers University and an M.S. in plant pathology from the University of Nebraska. She received her law degree, with honors, from Rutgers University School of Law – Camden.
Prior to entering patent law, Janet accumulated 10 years of laboratory experience in biochemistry, molecular biology and plant physiology/pathology, in graduate-level research and as a visiting postdoctoral research scientist at DuPont. Her scientific work has been published in such respected journals as Biochemistry, The European Journal of Biochemistry and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.