Chairperson:
• Robert Taylor, Owner, and Founder, RPT Legal Strategies

Discussants:
• Gary Lauder, Managing Director, Lauder Partners LLC
• Jonathan Barnett, Professor, Gould School of Law, USC
• Earl Bright, President, and General Counsel, ExploraMed Development
• Jeanne Suchodolski, Counsel, US Navy Office of General Counsel
• Matteo Sabattini, Director, IPR Policy, Ericsson

Description:
From the earliest days of our nation, entrepreneurs and inventors have been among the iconic heroes that defined our country and continuously reinvigorated our economy, often challenging entrenched incumbents by being more flexible and nimbler, and more dedicated to their new ideas. The US economy, for most of our history, has been the embodiment of the “gales of destruction” envisioned by Joseph Schumpeter. In the last 10-15 years, the ability of entrepreneurs to challenge incumbents has declined, especially in the electronic industries, but also in medical devices and few other areas dominated by entrenched monopolies and oligopolies, and with that decline, the interest of those who invest in high-risk technologies and the entrepreneurs who would pursue them has also declined. The causes and potential mitigations for this are complicated and sometimes obscure. The panel will bring broad and diverse perspectives to explore these phenomena.