Our Professionals

David Sasso, Founder of Watershed IP Law, is an IP professional with over 20 years of experience supporting worldwide IP transactions including patent licensing, litigation settlement, and strategic patent acquisitions and divestitures. David received his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University and his J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law. He has extensive experience with IP matters both in private practice and as an in-house counsel. His technical background includes computer systems engineering, medical devices, consumer electronics, photonics, semiconductor, telecommunication, search advertising and display technologies. Over his career, David has served as a Senior Counsel, Director, Chief Counsel and Vice President for a number of organizations managing legal and technical teams to support a full spectrum of IP functions.

David Dreifus has over 12 years of experience leading and supporting IP monetization and portfolio management. He created and led licensing and technology transfer programs yielding > $100M in royalties and has been managing and supporting many more initiatives through patent analyses, landscaping, mining, opportunity identification and modeling, market assessments, competitive intelligence, product mapping, claim chart creation, reverse engineering, and portfolio management. His technical background includes consumer electronics, semiconductors, optoelectronics, telecommunication, solid-state storage, and display technologies. David has served as an IP Monetization and Portfolio Manager for MiiCs IP, Sharp, Avago, and LSI Corporation. David also led corporate strategy development and contributed to storage product developments, technology strategy, and performed technology and market forecasting for networking infrastructure and consumer electronics. Earlier, David worked at Bell Laboratories and Kobe Steel’s Electronic Materials Research Center. David has over 45 scientific publications, 3 book chapters, and been awarded over 33 patents. He received a BS from Lehigh University, MS and Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, and he is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Societies and is a Senior Member of IEEE.

John M. Kowalski has over 35 years’ experience in the field of wireless communication and related technologies. He is an inventor on 140 granted patents, with additional patents pending in the fields of wireless communication, including standard essential IPR for 3G (UMTS), 4G (LTE), 5G (NR) as well as Wi-Fi. Dr. Kowalski has also participated in the 3GPP RAN1 and RAN2 standards groups since 2006, and has participated in the 802.11a, 802.11e, and other task groups of the IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards group. He has experience directing researchers towards developing standards essential IPR for Wi-Fi as well as LTE and NR, and creating policies towards effective IPR creation and promotion in standards bodies.

Chris Smyth is a Program Director for Watershed IP Law. Chris has over 20 years of experience in the IP / patent industry, encompassing corporate development, business development, strategy, and general management roles at some of the leading professional services and information services businesses in the space. Chris received his BS in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech and his MBA from NYU-Stern and is a licensed Patent Agent with the USPTO. Chris resides in Stamford, CT with his wife and three children.

Hattie Goldie has been working in the intellectual property field for 10+ years. She began supporting patent and trademark prosecution attorneys at a top tier IP law firm in the Knowledge Management department, and soon after became a Docketing Specialist. Her docketing work principally focused on the firm’s prolific litigation division, managing deadlines for a large number of cases in over 20 district courts and PTAB schedules from the USPTO. After leaving the law firm, Hattie joined a team working for in-house patent counsel at Sharp Laboratories of America, Inc., facilitating in the creation of new patents. Additionally, she aided in forming a new entity that was responsible for licensing and monetization and assisted with licensing programs.

Hunter Bentley is a project manager for Watershed IP Law. He is experienced in overseeing international licensing programs from inception to completion. Hunter works to ensure project coordination, maintain client communications, preparation of IP monetization materials, and support data management and documentation. He received his BS in Information Systems from Drexel University.

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Kyle Yarberry has over ten years’ experience as a patent professional, first as a patent agent and then as a patent attorney in private practice, most recently as a partner in a Seattle IP law firm. Kyle’s patent experience includes utility and design patent portfolio development, patent acquisition and enforcement strategy to protect revenue streams, prosecution, litigation, opinions, and administrative proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). He earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and his J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School. His technological experience includes wireless devices, image sensors, medical devices, aircraft systems, UAVs, AI-enhanced surgical systems, nanofluidics instruments, machinery, toys, amusements, sports equipment, and other technologies. Patents written and prosecuted by Kyle have a track record of delivering value through licensing and enforcement.

Kyle is the founding attorney of IPkey PLLC, the Watershed affiliate law firm with expertise in global patent prosecution.

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Ed Sugiyama, a subject matter expert, has over 25 years of experience in wireless technology software development and testing wireless devices. While utilizing his background in software programming, Ed extracted cellular baseband (Qualcomm, Samsung, Exynos) information such as network messages of various wireless devices including smartphones and modules used in automobiles, laptops and IoT.

Ed spearheaded carrier mandated test programs and successfully completed acceptance tests for market launch of Sharp mobile phones for Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, SoftBank, and DoCoMo. Using his software engineering background, Ed developed automated test tools that resulted in rapid debugging and re-testing of devices for approval. Ed also created mobile applications based on his experience with Qualcomm chipsets.

Additionally, Ed was a 3GPP RAN2 delegate focusing on NB-IoT and NTN communications. His technical background includes creating software applications for LoRaWAN, Sigfox and CAT-1/CAT-M modules as well as firmware enhancements of cardiac medical devices that include internal defibrillators, ECG, BP, SPO2/SVO2 monitors.