Expand Your Toolbox: Creative Approaches to IP Licensing, Protection, and Exclusivity

Amanda Conley Related Seminars and Products

Founder

Conley Law

Amanda R. Conley is the founder of Conley Law PC, a boutique intellectual property and advertising law firm. She helps creative entrepreneurs across a variety of industries protect, leverage, and enforce their intellectual property. Amanda specializes in helping clients navigate highly-regulated industries such as cannabis, hemp, dietary supplements, and new and emerging technologies. She also advises on advertising, marketing, website, and labeling compliance in addition to providing general transactional legal services. 

Prior to founding Conley Law, Amanda was a founding partner at Brand & Branch LLP and co-founder of the International Cannabis Bar Association. She runs the Provisors Bay Area Cannabis Affinity Group, and is an active member of the California Lawyers Association. 

Amanda graduated from New York University School of Law after getting an MA in Sociology at the University of Colorado. Before attending law school, Amanda researched and published in the field of quantitative demography, and taught undergraduate-level sociology courses.

Marcelo Pomeranz Related Seminars and Products

Associate

Cooley LLP

Dr. Marcelo Pomeranz’s practice focuses on the development and execution of world-wide intellectual property strategies for biotech and pharmaceutical companies. He has extensive experience in securing, defending, and challenging patents to provide clients with the necessary protection and freedom to operate to monetize their inventions. He has extensive technical experience in plant biology, RNA silencing, CRISPR gene editing, strain engineering, plant-derived medicines, molecular biology and systems biology. Marcelo is also an expert in cannabinoid biology and chemistry, representing clients in all areas of cannabinoid research, including cannabis and hemp breeding and genetics, cannabinoid and terpene biosynthesis, synthetic cannabinoid chemistry, cannabinoid and terpene extraction and detection, and cannabinoid formulation and pharmacology. He successfully secured the first patents to THC-containing plants in the US, Canada, and Europe. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. Marcelo's doctoral research focused on elucidating mechanisms for AU-rich mediated RNA degradation and the formation of RNA processing bodies and stress granules in plants. After his graduate work, he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University Center for Applied Sciences and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center. His postdoctoral work focused on the discovery of gene regulatory networks and developmental expression programs using next-generation sequencing and mathematical modeling. Marcelo was awarded the American Bar Association's Award for Excellence in intellectual property law. He has authored and co-authored numerous publications appearing in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, The Plant Journal, Plant Physiology and Plant Signal Behavior.

Laura Schniedwind Related Seminars and Products

Director and Lead Counsel, Product

Pax Labs, Inc.

Laura Schniedwind is a cannabis business attorney at PAX Labs, Inc., a leading global cannabis brand on a mission to enhance people’s lives through exceptional cannabis experiences. With experience in both start-up and global corporate environments, she provides strategic and legal partnership across the company, including product, sales, operations, business development, marketing, R&D, government affairs, and finance teams.

Her work enables the company to commercialize cannabis consumables and cannabis vaporization hardware within highly regulated frameworks on a global scale. She leads a high-performing compliance team that identifies trends and helps develop strategies and policy proposals to further the interests of PAX and our communities.

Laura has extensive experience working with companies of all sizes experiencing major growth in regulated industries. She has held a variety of legal positions serving the cannabis industry, including outside general counsel, sole practitioner, and of counsel. Prior to working for the cannabis industry, Laura was in-house counsel to a privately-held global company engaged in the development, manufacture, and sale of semiconductor analysis equipment, where she gained experience establishing a company-wide export compliance program, oversaw the implementation and alignment of company policies across subsidiaries, and worked with various stakeholders to draft agreements and help drive business forward. Following the company's acquisition by a public company, she decided to leverage her experience working with companies experiencing transition in regulated industries, and established a solo practice focused exclusively on the cannabis industry. After nearly two years running a successful solo practice, she joined a boutique firm Brand & Branch LLP, focused on advising cannabis and hemp businesses on intellectual property licensing, regulatory compliance, and commercial transactions, a role in which she served as outside counsel to PAX.

Based in Oakland, California, Laura is a Bay Area native and a graduate of the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Prior to law school, Laura was a translator for detained immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. 

Pearl Chan Related Seminars and Products

Chief Legal and Operating Officer

Hill Incorporated

Pearl is the Chief Legal and Operating Officer at Hill Incorporated, a TSX-V listed company with 2 business lines focused on the sale of alcohol-free beverages, and the licensing of DehyraTECH cannabis biodelivery technology rights. At Hill, she leads the company's legal, compliance and operational functions.

Prior to joining Hill Incorporated, Pearl led California-focused public cannabis company Origin House as its Canadian general counsel in its M&A, commercial and securities legal activities, including leading the company in its $1.1B sale to U.S. multi-state operator Cresco Labs, in then the largest-ever public company acquisition in the U.S. cannabis sector.

Soody Tronson Related Seminars and Products

Founding Managing Counsel

STLG Law Firm

Soody Tronson is a counsel, serial entrepreneur, inventor, and trusted advisor with over 25 years of interdisciplinary operational experience in innovation, technology, management, law, and advocacy in start-ups, Fortune 100 companies, and non-profits. Soody counsels domestic and international clients in intellectual property and technology transactions in various sectors, including hardware, software, medical devices, and alternative energy. Soody lectures on IP, licensing, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship domestically and internationally. 

She formed the boutique intellectual property law firm STLG after holding technical and management positions at Schering Plough and HP; practicing law at Hewlett-Packard, a successfully acquired medical device start-up, and the national law firms of HellerEhrman, and Townsend and Townsend. 

Soody has served in board, advisory, and leadership capacities with several organizations, including the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) national accelerator (Stem2Market); California Lawyers Association Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Section, Licensing Executives Society USA/Canada, and the Palo Alto Area Bar Association. She is an active member of several Silicon Valley Leadership Group committees, including Technology & Innovation, Health, Education, and the Women Executive Forum. 

Soody is listed in the IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists 2019.  She was honored as one of the 100 Women of Influence 2020 by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. In 2022, Soody was appointed to the Northern California District Export Council (NorCal DEC) by the Secretary of Commerce. 

She has been a commissioner with the city of Menlo Park, CA. She is an active, hands-on volunteer with several civic organizations, including Defy Ventures, an entrepreneurship, employment, and character development training program for currently and formerly incarcerated men, women, and youth.  

She is the co-author of the book "Women Securing the Future with TIPPSS for IoT: Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, Security for the Internet of Things" and an inventor of several patents and applications. Soody is the CEO of Presque, a wearable health-tech platform in the maternity space. One of her most fun ventures has been as co-founder of HighNote Coffee.