King & Spalding’s 4th Annual PharmaU

With contributions from some of my colleagues at Pharma Ventures, Aquilo Partners and Linda Pullan, Ph.D., here is a short presentation I recently delivered at King & Spalding’s PharmaU on life science and collaboration agreements.

What is a Technology Transaction?

With the help of a new tool called Prezi – and  a couple of New Yorker cartoons – I have now graduated from “one page” to a “single canvas.”   Click on the “play” button to navigate around the canvas and use “full screen mode” for best viewing.

Legends of Caltech

When someone in my dorm asked me “would you like a photo of the Caltech prank on the Hollywood sign?” I never thought it would eventually be the basis of a full-length feature movie called Legends of Caltech which is being made 20 years later!

Reseller vs. License Agreement

Back by popular demand, I asked my 12-year old daughter to help me illustrate the difference between a Reseller and a License Agreement. Claude Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” made the perfect background music.

What do Lawyers Do?

When my daughter asked me the perennial question: “Dad, what does a lawyer do?”, I showed her this cartoon*:

* Licensed with permission from the New Yorker

License Animation Project

Inspired by Caltech’s Mechanical Universe Project, I made a short video comparing the typical grant language of a software license, a biotech license and a patent license, all in about 60 seconds.

Startup Company Forms

My former Venture Law Group colleague and Harvard Law School graduate, Jeff Thomas, has been teaching entrepreneurship courses in various law and business programs. He formed his own company CrazyBrains LLC with the goal of helping entrepreneurs by open sourcing startup corporate forms. Here is his nicely put together one-pager.


Click here for downloadable PDF: Startup Company Forms

IP Ownership in Joint Development

After watching Sal Khan and the Khan Academy, it left me feeling envious of his abilities and talent, but also inspired to try and emulate his video concept.  With the help of my 12 year old daughter Maya, I have made a video which explains IP ownership in a joint development agreement on 1 page in about 100 seconds:

My “trivial” homage to Steve Jobs

In looking at the countless tributes and collections of quotes from Steve Jobs, it occurred to me that he was probably pretty good at the game Trivial Pursuit.  Here are 6 quotes that made me think why:

Biotech Valuation

When I was a young lawyer in 1997 at Cyrano Sciences, a company founded by Caltech Professors Nathan S. Lewis and Nobel Laureate Robert H. Grubbs, someone was kind enough to show me the basic metrics of valuing a drug opportunity.  Nothing fancy.