Ian Smythe
VP Product Marketing
Baya Systems
Ian Smythe is the Vice President of Product Marketing at Baya. He recently joined Baya and brings over 25 years of international experience leading business groups and technology teams. Ian has a background in developing and implementing marketing strategies for major technology companies.
Before joining Baya, Ian was Vice President of Product Marketing at Arm, where he served on the leadership team and oversaw all product marketing activities across business areas. He led the team responsible for messaging around Arm’s recent IPO.
Ian has built relationships within the compute ecosystem and has extensive experience working with partners to understand changing compute needs that inform future product strategies. His expertise spans multiple market sectors and technologies, including CPU, graphics, data centre, mobile, automotive, IoT and Edge, open-source software stacks, and AI.
He began his tenure at Arm in 2009 as Director of Marketing for the Media Processing Group (MPG), focusing on the development and launch of the Arm Mali GPU, which became the world’s best-selling GPU. Prior to this, Ian held senior roles in marketing and engineering at companies which include a leading semiconductor vendor and a DSP start-up.
Reynold D'Sa
CVP, Silicon, Cloud Hardware & Infrastructure Engineering
Microsoft
Reynold D’Sa is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering team which architects, develops, and manufactures the cloud hardware stack powering the Azure fleet. In his role at Microsoft, Reynold has led the development of custom silicon products like Azure Cobalt and Maia, and managed time-to-market delivery of at-scale AI supercomputing infrastructure for the Microsoft Cloud.
With his significant experience transforming the hardware lifecycle for growth and scale, Reynold has been instrumental in driving innovation and delivering solutions to meet the business demands of tomorrow. His work focuses on staying at the forefront of technology, ensuring Microsoft’s cloud hardware stack is built to enable advanced capabilities and support the next generation of cloud computing.
As European SEP regulation stalls, attention is shifting to what might follow. This session explores how evolving regulatory frameworks—such as changes to the EU’s technology transfer block exemption regulation—may affect global litigation strategy and licensing behaviour. Examine how these developments could shape the conduct of patent pools, the obligations of platform companies, and the balance of power between patent holders and implementers.
• Understand how proposed regulatory tightening could affect litigation dynamics and the behaviour of both implementers and SEP holders.
• Explore expectations around transparency, essentiality checks, and the role of patent pools like Sisvel and Avanci.
Assess the potential interplay between future SEP regulation, antitrust enforcement, and the evolving responsibilities of platform companies in global licensing negotiations.
Marc Evans
Director of Business Development & Marketing
Andes Tech
Marc Evans is a semiconductor executive with deep expertise in CPU and DSP IP and SoC architecture. At Andes Technology USA, he leads branding, go-to-market strategy, and strategic partnerships for Andes and its high-performance RISC-V subsidiary, Condor Computing.
He began his career in processor and memory system design at Amdahl, Hewlett-Packard, and Rambus, and was an early R&D team member at Tensilica. He later held leadership roles at Tensilica and CEVA, driving IP adoption across global accounts. Marc holds a B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
In fast-evolving technology fields such as IoT, automotive, medical devices, and telecommunications, patent validity remains a cornerstone issue in litigation and portfolio management. This session will explore the latest trends, challenges, and best practices for assessing and defending patent validity in these dynamic sectors. Expert panelists will discuss how to navigate evolving prior art landscapes, patent office practices, and validity challenges to strengthen patent portfolios and support successful enforcement strategies.
• Examine key grounds for challenging patent validity in high-tech industries, including novelty, inventive step, and sufficiency of disclosure
• Discuss recent case law and patent office developments impacting validity assessments in Europe and the USA
• Explore strategic approaches to managing validity risk during patent prosecution, portfolio audits, and litigation
This session explores the evolving role of non-practicing entities NPEs), defensive patent aggregators, and LNGs (Licensing Negotiation Groups) in shaping global SEP and FRAND litigation dynamics. Panelists will discuss how these actors influence licensing strategies, litigation risks, and regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions. Attendees will gain insight into the strategic approaches employed by both implementers and patent holders, the impact of collective licensing initiatives, and ongoing efforts to mitigate patent assertion risks.
• Examine how and if LNGs help smaller implementers navigate antitrust rules and negotiate better SEP license terms, especially in emerging IoT markets.
• Discuss the strategies used by defensive patent aggregators to challenge questionable patents and reduce litigation exposure for their members.
• Understand the latest trends in NPE litigation, including monitoring, patent acquisition strategies, and efforts to address injunction threats in key jurisdictions such as Germany and the USA.
Volker Politz
CSO
Semidynamics
Volker Politz is the Chief Sales officer at Semidynamics, responsible for all IP sales and business development activities as well as product marketing. Prior to this, he was VP sales at Roviero, held EU Sales and Global Auto Business management positions in Verisilicon and worked as IP sales manager in Synopsys Europe. He was Vice President of Product and Segment Marketing at Imagination Technologies. He is an international marketing, business development and management executive with over 30 years’ experience in semiconductor and technology companies. He also held roles and responsibilities in Europe, Asia and the United States with experience built from engineering, marketing, sales, and general management positions at Hitachi and Renesas. He has broad know-how in vertical domains such as digital multimedia, broadcast technologies, automotive, industrial, mobile, security and AI. Volker holds a Masters engineering degree in communication electronics from Fachhochschule Konstanz, Germany and an MBA from Open University, United Kingdom.
Judges from leading patent jurisdictions come together to share their perspectives on FRAND royalty rate determination and core technology related patent litigation questions. This forum offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from those shaping the legal landscape around standard-essential patents, licensing disputes, and evolving enforcement trends. The panel will explore practical challenges, judicial approaches, and insights into how courts are balancing innovation incentives with fair competition.