Retired Chief Judge Paul R. Michel Joins Board of Intellectual Property Exchange International (IPXI®)

CHICAGO, Oct. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc. (IPXI), the world's first financial exchange for licensing and trading intellectual property (IP) rights, today announced the appointment of Retired U.S. Chief Federal Circuit Judge Paul R. Michel as an independent member of the Board of Managers of IPXI Holdings, LLC.  Judge Michel has consistently earned global recognition, awards and distinctions for his leadership in intellectual property and patent law.

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Said IPXI President and Chief Executive Officer Gerard Pannekoek: "We are extremely honored to welcome Chief Judge Michel to our Board. He is without question one of the most knowledgeable and respected global experts in the field of intellectual property. His leadership and insights will be invaluable as we continue to both transform the way companies, universities and laboratories monetize their IP and advance the development of IP as an asset class."

Judge Michel said: "Although courts are crucial to the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property, most selling and licensing of IP rights necessarily and properly occurs out of court. Until now, however, the private sorting of patent rights and technology needs has been largely secret, costly, slow and not always reflective of fair market value. IPXI provides a transparent, efficient and fair market to meet those long-felt needs."

Judge Michel was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in March 1988. In late 2004, he assumed the duties of Chief Judge, after which he also served as one of 27 judges on the Judicial Conference of the United States, the governing body of the Judicial Branch. In 2005, he was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, to serve on the Conference's seven-judge Executive Committee. Prior to his retirement from the bench on May 31, 2010, Judge Michel weighed thousands of appeals and wrote more than 800 opinions, approximately one third of which related to patent cases. He presided over landmark cases that included Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Gateway, Inc. and In re Bilski.

Earlier in his career, Judge Michel served in the executive and legislative branches for more than two decades. He graduated from Williams College in 1963 and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1966.

Since 2003, Managing Intellectual Property magazine has consistently named Judge Michel one of the 50 Most Influential People in the world in intellectual property.  In 2008 he was awarded the first annual Lifetime Achievement Award by the Richard Linn American Inn of Court and the Sedona Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.  In 2010 he was one of five global figures inducted into Intellectual Asset Management magazine's Intellectual Property Hall of Fame. That same year, he received the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Federico Award for "outstanding contribution to the Patent and Trademark Systems of the United States of America".

In June 2010, Judge Michel was elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Education Foundation and became a Distinguished Scholar in Residence there. He also served as Special Advisor to the Patent Reform Task Force and the Council of the Section on Intellectual Property of the American Bar Association, and as a member of the AIPLA Committee on Public Appointments. Most recently he was invited to join the Advisory Committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Networked Innovation project and the Advisory Committee of the Manufacturing Initiative of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.

About IPXI

IPXI is the world's first financial exchange for licensing and trading intellectual property rights. The mission of IPXI is to meet the price discovery, transaction efficiency and data distribution needs of intellectual property owners, investors and traders by creating the central marketplace for tradable IP assets. IPXI is funded by a group of U.S. and European investors, including CBOE Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBOE) and Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Philips) (NYSE: PHG). The IPXI members include some of the world's leading innovative corporations and most prestigious universities and national laboratories. Among the IPXI members are: Ford Global Technologies, LLC; Philips Intellectual Property & Standards;  JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.; Sony Corporation of America; Orange SA; Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America; the Regents of the University of California; Columbia Technology Ventures; Northwestern University; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. For more information on IPXI, please see the Exchange Fact Sheet or visit www.ipxi.com.

SOURCE Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc. (IPXI)