Cultivating Your SuccessSMDormant No More: Alternative Paths to Fund and Activate Dormant IP
Panel Speakers
Meet the experts leading the conversation on dormant IP activation
Rodney J. Fuller
Founding Partner
Fuller IP Law
Rodney J. Fuller is a registered patent and trademark attorney and partner of Fuller IP Law. A big-picture visionary with focused game-plan strategy skills, Rod proffers enthusiastic support and it's-possible thinking to turn your ambitious goals into reality. If you asked Rod about his biggest career successes, he probably wouldn't mention the multi-million dollar companies he represents or the international alliances he's established. Instead, he'd probably talk excitedly about the brilliant person he spoke with yesterday whose idea is going to change the world. If you were to remind him that you were hoping to hear about his biggest success, not his client's, he'd respond by expressing that is his greatest success: improving the world by giving the brilliant minds around him access to progress through his carefully designed strategies of intellectual property protection and growth. Perhaps the epitome of his inclination to beautify the world through proactive innovation is the new iris that he hybridized in his own backyard that was accepted by the American Iris Society. As a great communicator, Rod is a dependable guide through the IP maze without ever losing the joy of the dream.
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Patricia Stepp
Assistant Vice President, Technology Transfer
Rice University
Patricia Stepp is the Assistant Vice President for Technology Transfer at Rice University. She leads the strategic planning and operations of the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). OTT manages Rice's intellectual property portfolio and oversees intellectual property evaluation, obtains intellectual property protection, and negotiates licensing agreements and research contracts. She was previously at Skysong Innovations, Arizona State University's technology transfer office, where she was the director of intellectual property for the life sciences team. She created Skysong Innovations' diversity initiative, SEAT, which promotes research commercialization opportunities among underrepresented faculty. She also helped start the Phoenix chapter of Nucleate, a student-led nonprofit organization that helps launch life sciences startups using university-licensed technologies. She is a registered patent agent who previously worked at a law firm and in-house, handling the preparation and prosecution of patent applications. She has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Arkansas and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology. She completed a postdoctoral position at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Czech Academy of Sciences and at the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.
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Benjamin Tietgen
General Counsel
VivaMed BioPharma
Benjamin Tietgen is General Counsel at VivaMed BioPharma, where he leads legal, IP and regulatory strategy for an AI-enabled drug discovery and co-development platform and a diversified portfolio of pharmaceutical assets. Using his 20 years of experience in private practice, Ben supports VivaMed's university outreach and directs its patent-sanity workflows, combining rapid TTO triage, IP portfolio analysis, and crowdsourced scientific review to prioritize new and dormant academic inventions for collaborative development and commercialization. He advises on licensing, patent prosecution and venture transactions that translate university technologies into funded development programs.
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Taylor Bench
Panelist
Summit Venture Studio
Taylor Bench is one of the Managing Partners at Summit Venture Studio. He has extensive experience working in university tech transfer offices, which has given him a deep understanding of the unique challenges universities face when licensing and commercializing their technology. Based on his experience, he was inspired to create Summit Venture Studio.
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Seattle Convention Center
Arch 705 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
Panel Discussion
Tuesday, February 10th, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Pacific Time
Universities, research institutions and other TTO's hold vast portfolios of intellectual property that often remain underutilized. This panel brings together industry experts, university leaders, and legal professionals to explore innovative strategies for unlocking the value of dormant IP assets.
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The Issue of Dormant IP in Technology Transfer Offices (TTO)
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About Fuller IP Law
Fuller IP Law is a full-service intellectual property law firm dedicated to safeguarding IP rights. We specialize in patents, trademarks, copyrights, and more, providing protection and value for our clients' innovations.
Serving startups, established businesses, and individual inventors, we tailor our services to meet unique needs backed by extensive experience across various industries.
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