News
Dan Ovanezian, Bill Ragland & Jeffrey Whittle Selected as Among The World’s Top Intellectual Property Strategists
Aug 16 2024
Womble Bond Dickinson attorneys Dan Ovanezian, Bill Ragland, and Jeffrey Whittle have been named to Intellectual Asset Management magazine’s IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists for 2024 and were also selected as Strategy 300 Global Leaders.
The Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) “is the only resource of its kind, acknowledging leaders from across in-house, private practice and service provider roles. A slot in the 300 is the mark of a professional whose approach to intellectual property is regarded by peers as truly strategic in nature.”
IAM researchers in the United States, Europe and Asia spoke to a wide range of senior corporate IP managers, as well as third-party IP service providers. Only those individuals nominated multiple times by different parties as outstanding IP strategists are listed in the IAM Strategy 300. The 2024 edition includes professionals in areas such as brokering, defensive patent aggregation, finance, insurance, management consultancy, the law, licensing, mergers and acquisitions, tax, and valuation.
In addition, Ovanezian, Ragland, and Whittle also are ranked in IAM Patent 1000: The World’s Leading Patent Professionals.
Dan Ovanezian is a seasoned patent prosecutor with over 20 years of experience in intellectual property law. Ovanezian’s background in engineering as well as his broad technology experience enables him to provide unique perspective on issues with corporate clients. Ovanezian is an Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, teaching Legal Issues of a Startup and Entrepreneur’s Law. He also serves on the advisory committee of the California Lawyers for the Arts, for the California Inventors Assistance Program, and is involved in initiatives to help provide IP pro bono services to financially underresourced independent inventors and small businesses.
Bill Ragland is among Womble Bond Dickinson’s most experienced lead patent and intellectual property litigators and strategists. He has successfully litigated more than 70 patent infringement and other patent-related cases in his 38-year career. Ragland also provides strategic advice regarding the structure, negotiation and implementation of intellectual property enforcement and licensing programs and portfolio management services. Ragland founded the Atlanta Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Section and served as its first co-chair, is a past president of the Atlanta Bar Association, and currently serves on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia. He also currently serves as co-chair of the Alumni of the Smithsonian National Board and as a board director of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Arts & Sciences Foundation.
Jeffrey Whittle provides nearly 30 years of legal experience to clients in the energy and high-tech industries. He advises on strategic and complex technology merger & acquisition transactions, licensing, patent, trademark, and copyright protection, intellectual property portfolio analysis, and various other contentious and transactional matters, including inter partes reexaminations, post-grant reviews, and derivation proceedings, among other disputed cases. Whittle is Head of Womble Bond Dickinson’s Global Energy and Natural Resources Industry Sector and serves as Managing Partner of the firm’s Houston office.
