Intellectual Property Authority Kevin Rivette to Speak at Ocean Tomo Patent Awards Banquet

Kevin Rivette, Vice President of Intellectual Property Strategy at IBM Corp. and co-author of the groundbreaking book on intellectual property strategy, “Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents,” will be the featured speaker at Ocean Tomo’s Patent Awards Banquet, to be held April 5, 2006 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Master of ceremonies for the evening will be Brian Sullivan, host of Bloomberg TV’s early morning financial and investment program “Morning Call.”

The Ocean Tomo Patent Awards Banquet is part of the events surrounding The Ocean Tomo Spring 2006 Live Patent Auction, the world’s first live, multi-lot technology patent auction. Taking place April 5-6 at The Ritz Carlton San Francisco, the auction has attracted many large and mid-sized firms including Siemens, Kimberly Clark, 3COM and BellSouth. Institutional and privates investors, as well as a number of notable inventors, are also participating.

The banquet, which takes place at the end of the first day’s events, will be held in the Skylight Area of San Francisco’s famed Palace of Fine Arts, home of the Exploratorium. The evening will be highlighted by Ocean Tomo’s Excellence in Technology Transfer awards honoring the top patents from the auction and their inventors. Winners are determined through Ocean Tomo’s proprietary Intellectual Property Quotient IPQ(TM) rating system, which employs a sophisticated statistical methodology to specifically identify those patents having the highest probability for economic success.

Concluding the gala evening will be the speech by Rivette, who went from a California-based patent attorney to become an international thought leader in the critically important area of intellectual property. Rivette’s 2000 book, “Rembrandts in the Attic,” heralded the idea that companies must not only protect, but also leverage, the strategic and financial value of their patent portfolios.

For more information about the awards dinner or the Ocean Tomo Spring 2006 Patent Auction, call (312) 377-4851 or visit http://www.oceantomoauctions.com/ .