We are pleased to accept proposals for workshop and roundtable sessions for the LES 2025 Annual Meeting, “Strategic Partnerships for IP Development and Market Growth.” The meeting will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, October 19 – 22, 2025.
Proposals are due February 15, 2025.
Topics
Proposals should be directed to topics of practical significance to the LES community of IP/licensing professionals. Topics can range from basic to advanced, though, keep in mind that the majority of attendees will have at least a working familiarity with licensing and technology. We hope to offer a program facilitating that audience’s development through shared knowledge and experiences.
The theme of the annual meeting is “Strategic Partnerships for IP Development and Market Growth.” We welcome submissions on topics true to that, but we do not require it. Past annual meeting attendees have benefited from workshops and roundtable discussions in many areas, from emerging technologies to IP valuation to deal negotiations, and we invite those, as well.
Here are some suggested topics. You are welcome to use one of these in your proposal, but we invite you to be creative and come up with a topic of your own:
- Best Practices for Commercializing University and Government Lab Research
- Building an Effective Patent Portfolio
- CCPA, HIPPA, GDRP and all That Jazz: Making Sense of a Global Patchwork of Privacy Laws
- The Latest Developments in Biotechnology Commercialization
- Deal Terms: Planning for Success but Hedging for Failure in Long-Term Partnerships
- Emerging Technologies: Will AI Replace the Worker
- Encouraging Innovation in Agriculture and Food Security
- Ethics in Licensing: Has the Time Come for Developing a Standard?
- Finding the Right Partner: A Win-Win Approach to Expanding Your (and Their) Market Share
- The Fundamentals of Brand Development and Licensing
- Industry Giants as Strategic Partners: Funding Growth without Risking it All
- IP Terms for Joint Development Agreements and Strategic Partnerships
- Keeping Measure of Your Assets: A Layperson’s Approach IP Valuation
- Local Efforts and Global Trends in Environmental Sustainability and Energy
- Enforcing Your IP Worldwide
- Socially Responsible Technology Licensing
- Software Licensing: Juggling Overlapping Patent, Copyright and Trade Secret Provisions
- Stories from the Front Line: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Partnering
- Strategic Partnerships Between Industry and Research Labs
In addition to a topic, your submission should include a synopsis, take-home points and other information requested on the submission form. That includes the proposed moderator and panelists, along with their titles and affiliations (e.g,. name of company, university, government laboratory, etc.). In order to provide the best experience for attendees, moderators and panelists should bring a variety of viewpoints to a topic. Consider representatives from a cross-section of LES membership, including private industry, government, and academia; and, as appropriate, representing diverse perspectives, e.g., intellectual capital management, licensing, business development, legal, and regulatory viewpoints.
General guidelines for submissions follow. We thank you in advance for taking the time to submit your proposal. Our organizing committee will review it and those of others to build a program that best fits the needs of our membership. Typically, we have not been able to include every submission in our programs, and we therefore encourage you to make yours as complete as possible to give it the best chance for inclusion.
GUIDELINES
As part of the submission process, you will be asked to acknowledge your agreement to follow these commitments and convey them to the presenters associated with your submission.
Presenting a session at the LES Annual Meeting requires commitment to the organization on several levels:
- Educational – sessions must be of educational benefit to members, not promotional presentations
- Organizational – session leaders must secure speaker commitments, prepare presentation and CLE (see Section 4 below regarding CLE–qualified sessions) materials, and communicate logistics in a timely fashion. Please refer to the timeline below for specific expectations.
- Financial – workshop speakers are required to cover the cost of their participation by paying the registration fee. LES is a non-profit, volunteer-driven community of IP professionals that relies on the financial participation of meeting attendees to fulfill our mission and develop valuable content and events like the annual meeting.
Proposals will be reviewed by peers on the organizing committee. Factors included in the review will include:
- Completeness of submission, with all requested content and speaker information
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in speaker selection
- Speakers from diverse professional settings
- Interactivity with attendees as it relates to content delivery
- Applicability of topic across multiple industries, sectors, and interest groups
- Educational intent (no promotional presentations)
- Whether topic addresses or proposed content touches on theme of annual meeting
Due to time and space constraints, not all submissions can be selected for the meeting.
Each session at the 2025 Annual Meeting must comply with the following requirements:
- All moderators and speakers must register for the meeting and pay the registration fee.
- LES must be immediately notified in writing of any speaker changes, which are subject to approval by the Planning Committee. For presenters who must cancel, they must find a replacement speaker. Cancellations may impact future session selection.
- Each session must have at least 3 speakers. Panels must have a moderator and 3 or 4 speakers.
- There can be no more than one speaker from the same organization in any session.
- Each person can only speak in one session per meeting.
These conditions must be satisfied for session acceptance and maintained to make the final program. Non-conforming panels may be removed from the program.
Sessions can become CLE/RTTP/CLP eligible if acceptable written materials are provided. If you are interested in making your session CLE/RTTP/CLP eligible please indicate so in your proposal submission.
Notification of acceptance will be sent to the submitter after the conclusion of review by March 15, 2024. At that time, submitters will be notified by email of their acceptance.
First, please download the template below.
Once the template is complete, click the below link and sign-in. Fill out your details and upload your abstract.
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
TIMELINE
FEBRUARY 15 | Deadline for Proposal Submissions at 6 PM Eastern time |
MARCH 10 | Acceptance notifications sent via email to submitters; confirmations due within 7 days of notice |
APRIL 1 | Session leaders must confirm all speakers in order to remain on the program |
APRIL 15 | Speaker registration deadline |
JUNE 1 | All speakers must sign speaker agreement |
For any questions about the LES Annual Meeting or the proposal submission process, please contact 2025 LES Annual Meeting Conference Office lesam@northernnetworking.co.uk