Programs · Expert Panel Biographies
Andrea Brady
Andrea Brady is president of the Inventor’s Council of Cincinnati, a non-profit group dedicated to helping independent inventors learn to develop their products efficiently and effectively. The group serves over 80 members and almost 500 people, including experienced and new inventors, service providers, and corporate members.
In addition, she owns IdeaSmart Development Services, a new product development firm that helps people bring their products to market; and The Marketing Shop, a marketing consulting firm specializing in small business. Her expertise is strategic marketing planning, consumer research and new product development. She currently holds two U.S. patents.
Andrea has a degree in Economics/Multinational Enterprise from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Marian Knode
Marian is a Supervisory Patent Examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and is currently a director of Technology Center 1700, which examines patent applications for chemical engineering. After graduating from the Catholic University of America with a B.S. in Medical Technology, she was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. She joined the USPTO in 1989 as a patent examiner for biotechnology applications and was later promoted to Supervisory Patent Examiner in 1994.
Over the course of her career, Marian has been awarded two Bronze Medals and an Exceptional Career Award from the USPTO. She represented the USPTO at a number of venues including the Society for Industrial Microbiology, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Advanced Patent Law Institute, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society’s National Meeting, and the National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair. She works closely with the Inventors Assistance Program and continues to be a recruiter for the USPTO.
Loretta Kraus
Loretta has been a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Investigator for 28 years, 23 of which were spent at the Denver Regional Office of the FTC. In 1999, Ms. Kraus joined the staff of the East Central Region in Cleveland, Ohio. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from MacQuarie University, Sydney Australia, which she attended as a Commonwealth Scholar. Her experience includes investigations of work-at-home schemes, business opportunity and franchise fraud, and fraudulent cross-border telemarketing operations. She also has experience in merger analysis in the areas of involving oil and gas terminals and pipelines, supermarket chains, and hospitals.
Beverly A. Lyman
Beverly is a Partner with Wood, Herron & Evans. Beverly’s expertise is in the biotechnology and chemistry practice areas. Admitted to the Ohio bar in 1996 and registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Beverly joined Wood, Herron & Evans in 1996 after serving on the faculty of the University of Tennessee.
She holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Biochemistry from Hahnemann Medical College, and completed post-doctoral work at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. She holds a M.S. degree in Science Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology in 1978 from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beverly graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Memphis Law School in 1996.
She is on the Patent Resources Group faculty, lecturing on biotechnology patent prosecution and is an active member of the American Bar Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sigma-Xi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association of University Technology Managers.
Douglas Roberts
Douglas is a partner in Thompson, Hine’s Corporate Transactions & Securities and International practice groups. He has over 15 years of experience in a wide range of public securities, private equity/venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, general corporate and international issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Doug interned with the European Community Secretariat of the European Parliament in Luxembourg from 1983 to 1984, with Dole Food Company in 1986, and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. in 1987. He also practiced law in Los Angeles from 1988 to 1992 and with another firm in Cincinnati from 1992 to 2005.
Doug received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law. He graduated magna cum laude from Miami University in 1985.