Christal Sheppard, director of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office’s Midwest Satellite Office in Detroit, Mich., will speak at
the 13th annual Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’
Conference,
to be held June 2-3 at Madison’s Alliant
Energy Center.

Sheppard, who leads the USPTO operations,
policy and community outreach efforts throughout the Midwest, will give
welcoming remarks to kickoff of the two-day event at 8:30 a.m. June 2. Learn
more and register for the conference at www.WiTrepsConference.com.  

Read this story in the Wisconsin State Journal here.

She will also be available for one-on-one
meetings with conference registrants later that morning. To reserve a 15-minute
slot, please email tbrowning@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com. Meetings
are limited and will be scheduled in advance.

Prior to joining the USPTO, Sheppard was an assistant
professor at the University of Nebraska, where she co-founded a program of
concentrated study in intellectual property law at the Law College.

Sheppard has a master’s and a doctoral degree in cellular
and molecular biology from the University of Michigan, as well as a law degree
from Cornell University Law School. She has more than two decades of science
and intellectual property law and policy experience, including as practicing
attorney at Foley & Lardner, the U.S. International Trade Commission and
stints with the federal court system and the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy.

She was chief counsel on patents and trademarks for the House
Committee on the Judiciary, where she worked on the Leahy-Smith “America
Invents Act,” the most comprehensive change to this nation’s intellectual
property laws in more than 60 years.

“Director Sheppard’s
visit to Madison comes at a time when Congress is again debating how to
streamline the U.S. patent system. That’s important in a world where
competition is constant and innovation is no longer an exclusively American
product,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Produced by the Tech Council, the conference is one of
the largest events of its kind in the Upper Midwest. More than 500 people are
expected to attend the two-day conference, to be held June 2-3 at the Alliant
Energy Center, 1919 Alliant Energy Center Way, just off Madison’s South
Beltline. Additional speakers and features will be announced in coming weeks, all under the theme
of “Nurturing Entrepreneurial Roots.” Other highlights:

  • A
    keynote presentation by Jerry Jendusa,
    co-founder and former CEO of EMTEQ and now a principal with STUCK LLC
  • The
    2015 Ken Hendricks Memorial “Seize the Day” award recipient Jim Berbee, founder of Berbee
    Information Networks Corp.
  • Fifteen
    panel discussions for emerging
    companies on how to “Launch, Grow and Succeed,” including a special June 2 plenary
    session to be announced
  • Innovation Showcase featuring more than 45 companies
    from around the state
  • Plenty
    of chances to connect with seasoned
    entrepreneurs and investors over food and refreshments!

Sponsors so far include: Aberdean Consulting; Alliant
Energy; American Family Insurance; American Transmission Co.; Ascendancy
Advisors; AT&T; Baird Capital; Baker Tilly; BDO; BloodCenter of Wisconsin;
BMO Harris Bank; City of Fitchburg; Concordia University; CORE Business
Consulting; Cresa Madison; Dedicated Computing; DeWitt Ross & Stevens;
Exact Sciences; Filament Games; Fine Point Consulting; First Business Bank;
Godfrey & Kahn; Google; Group Health Cooperative; HP Enterprise Services;
Madison College; Madison Gas & Electric; Makin’ HEY! Communications;
Marquette University; Marshfield Clinic Applied Sciences; Michael Best &
Friedrich; Mid-West Energy Research Consortium; Midwest Prototyping; MIOsoft;
Murphy Desmond; Neider & Boucher; Nelson Schmidt; NEW Capital Fund; New
Horizons of Wisconsin; Nordic; PowerBuy 4 You; Quarles & Brady; RDC
National Inc.; Red Arrow Production; Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.; Rockwell
Automation; Safenet Consulting; The Business Journal; Tweedee Productions;
University Research Park; Uber; UW-Madison Discovery to Product (D2P);
UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations; UW-Milwaukee Research Foundation;
Venture Investors; Whitewater University Technology Park; Whyte Hirschboeck
Dudek S.C.; WIN-Lake Superior; Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.; Wisconsin
Technical College System; and WTN Media.

For more
information, visit www.witrepsconference.com or call 608-442-7557.