Cynthia Cannady is a principal and founder of IPSEVA. She is an expert in intellectual property strategy and technology licensing. She holds a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor degree with honors from Stanford University. She is a member of the Bars of the State of California and the District of Columbia.
Prior to founding IPSEVA in 2007, Mrs. Cannady was Director of the Intellectual Property and New Technologies Division at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland, where her responsibilities included direction of activities and international training programs relating to IP strategy, licensing, technology transfer, valuation, and IP asset management. (2001-2007). Her professional experience has included: Principal, Tech Law Group, Menlo Park, California (1997 to 2001); Apple Computer, Vice President of Law for Manufacturing and Development, Cupertino, California (1993 to 1997); Partner, Litigation, Fenwick & West, Palo Alto, California (1984 to 1992).
She was on the Executive Committee of the California State Bar Intellectual Property Section, and has been an active member of the Licensing Executives Society (LES), where she served as chair of the Semiconductor Committee. She was a commercial arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, and a Special Master and Early Neutral Evaluator for the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California. She was a member of the Inns of Court for the Northern District of California. She was a law clerk to Judge Alvin B. Rubin in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She served as an attorney advisor in the United States Department of State.
She is a frequent lecturer on IP strategy and IP licensing, including co-teaching a course on Global Exploitation of IP Rights at the National University of Singapore Law School, lecturing on IP Strategy in the Private Sector for the European Institute for Life Sciences in Basel, Switzerland, speaking at the Center for Intellectual Property Forum at Chalmers University in Goteborg, Sweden, and a short course on IP licensing with the University of Turin, Italy and the WIPO Academy. She regularly teaches and organizes programs on IP licensing, technology transfer, IP laws and policies relating to research institutions, and patent drafting. She has developed the WIPO curricula on Successful Technology Licensing and on Patent Drafting. In 2008, she was a guest expert at the Second Annual Asian Regional Patent Drafting Training Course sponsored by the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs and WIPO.
She served as a Trustee for Stanford University from 1990-1995 where she was active on the Finance and Academic Affairs Committees. She served as a member of the Stanford Medical Center Committee on Ethics. She served as a consultant to the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara during 2008 and 2009.
She is the author of the treatise Technology Licensing and Development Agreements, Matthew Bender books, LexisNexis, 2013, in addition to other publications listed on the publications page of this website.
Her language skills include French (United Nations certificate of fluency), knowledge of German, Portuguese and Arabic.
Phone +1-626-460-8607
E-mail: cannady@ipseva.com