Released on = June 26, 2006, 7:39 am

Press Release Author = Mike Romanies/AIEA

Industry = Small Business

Press Release Summary = Austin Inventors and Entrepreneurs Association (AIEA) - June
Meeting - IP Law

Press Release Body = Topic: IP Law

Speaker: Steve Sprinkle, Intellectual Propoery Lawyer. Steve, along with several
other lawyers, founded Sprinkle IP Law Group in June 2004 to provide a focused
intellectual property service designed to create valuable patent portfolios that can
generate revenue for his clients. Sprinkle IP Law Group concentrates on two primary
areas of patent law: 1) obtaining patents and managing patent portfolios and 2)
generating a return on his client's patent portfolio investment through various
enforcement mechanisms, including licensing and litigation.

Prior to starting Sprinkle lP Law Group, Steve was the partner in charge of the
intellectual property section in the Austin office of Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich.
Steve had come over to Gray Cary form Baker & Botts to help open the Gray Cary
Austin office in 1998. He has worked with technology companies throughout his twelve
year legal career, and was an engineer at Texas Instruments for five years prior to
attending law school at the University of Texas. For the last nine years, while
continuing to provide intellectual property services to Fortune 100 clients, a
significant majority of his clients have been start-up technology companies that
have raised capital in a variety of ways to pursue their business ideas.




This talk will focus on various proposed changes in the law (e.g., Patent Reform Act
of 2005) and changes in the rules at the USPTO (e.g., see attached) that will affect
those seeking to obtain patent protection and to enforce those patent rights against
infringers. We will also discuss various other factors (e.g., Patent Trolls,
Intellectual Ventures, Eastern District of Texas) that are driving these changes.
The point of the presentation will be to give inventors an idea of how the landscape
is/will be changing for better and worse for them vis a vis obtaining/enforcing
their patent rights.

June 28, 2006, 7:00 - 8:00 pm


Web Site = http://www.austininventors.org

Contact Details = Mike Romanies
m2romanies@att.net