Our people

Craig is a partner in Reed Smith’s Intellectual Property Group in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. He brings more than 20 years of U.S., European and Asian high-tech, clean-tech and medical device experience to his practice, and draws on his extensive legal and corporate executive experience to provide services centered on intellectual property as a strategic corporate asset. His clients – from start-ups to Fortune 500-sized companies – engage him to help design, build, defend against and leverage IP assets.

Craig has spent most of his career in Silicon Valley, after moving there from his native South Africa in 1991. Prior to joining Reed Smith, he was a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius and before that was General Counsel, SVP Strategy and Chief IP Officer of Health Hero Network, Inc., a maker of remote patient monitoring systems. At Health Hero, he managed and continued to build out a patent portfolio rated by a joint MIT / CHI Research study as one of the top 15 most cited IT patent portfolios in 2003. Prior to being at Health Hero, he was Chief IP Officer of NASDAQ-listed, interactive-TV company OpenTV, Inc. and its controlling shareholder, Dutch-based MIH Limited. At Open-TV, he developed the well-publicized patent strategy to protect OpenTV’s rights to its “one-click shopping” innovations that pre-dated those of Amazon.com by more than three years. From 1994 to 2000, he was at Cooley Godward Kronish, where he was a partner from 1996.

During his career, Craig has worked with and represented clients in a number of industries, including clean-tech, software, the Internet, e-commerce, interactive TV, pay-TV, instant messaging, video conferencing, conditional access, medical devices, disease management, digital health, and semi-conductors. Clients increasingly recognize that intellectual property in isolation is not very useful, and Craig's practice specializes in helping clients couple their IP with their business strategy by integrating the three pillars of the IP asset—designing & building portfolios, leveraging IP, and managing IP risks and controversies—in a business-centric manner.

Craig is a Stanford Business School SEP alumnus, holds Law and Engineering degrees from the Universities of South Africa and Cape Town respectively, is a graduate of the South African Naval Academy, and is a registered patent attorney in both the United States and South Africa. He regularly publishes and is invited to speak on intellectual property issues. Craig is admitted to practice in California and South Africa, and before the U.S. and South African Patent Offices.

Publications

• “The patent system on trial and under attack,” written debate with the authors of “Patent Failure,” James Bessen and Michael Meurer, Intellectual Property Magazine, October/November 2008
• “Getting less for more,” with Carina M. Tan, Intellectual Property Magazine, December/January 2008
• “Slugging it out over Software,” written debate with Jason Schultz from the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Intellectual Property Magazine, April/May 2005
• “Folly of legislating against software patents,” Intellectual Property Magazine, December/January 2005
• “A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing – the European software patent debate,” Intellectual Asset Management, August/September 2004
• "Location, Location, Location," Intellectual Asset Management, April/May 2004
• "Patent Time Bombs," Intellectual Asset Management, February/March 2004
• "Do Patents Really Make a Difference to Stock Price?" Intellectual Property Today, February 2002
• Preface to: The Internet & the Law in South Africa; edited by Reinhardt Buys; van Schaik Publishers; 2000
• "Using the PCT Process to Your Clients' Advantage," Intellectual Property Today, December 1999
• "Limits on Medical Procedures Patents," New Matter, Vol. 21, No. 3; 1996
• "U.S. Patent Law's New Face: Implications for Australia's American Patent Portfolios," Australian Intellectual Property Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4; November 1995
• "U.S. Patent Law's New Face," The Computer Lawyer, Vol. 12, No. 3; March 1995

Speeches / Presentations

• Guest Lecturer on Intellectual Property at Stanford University’s Engineering School (2000 to date)
• "Managing the Inevitable Upcoming IP Challenges in e-Health," presented at the Disease Management Association of America’s Disease Management Leadership Forum, Orlando, October 2004
• "How Intellectual Property Can Change the Balance of Competitive Power Among the Makers of Healthcare Unbound Technologies," Healthcare Unbound Conference, Boston, July 9, 2004
• "Determining The Value and Impact of Patents and Other Intellectual Property in Telehealth,” American Telehealth Association Conference, Tampa, Fla., May 2004
• "Negotiating Strategies for IP transactions," Licensing Executives Society (LES), Silicon Valley, Calif., Spring 2003
• "Intellectual Property valuations and evaluations," Licensing Executives Society (LES) Silicon Valley, Calif., Spring 2003
• PLI's 21st Annual Institute on Computer Law, "Business Method Patents (Enter the Debate or Seize the Opportunity?)" Spring 2001
• DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) International Conference, speaking on the conflict between the DVB/MHP standard, its IP regime and IP rights, Dublin, Ireland, March 2001
• PLI: Conference on "e-Commerce, Strategies for Success in the Digital Economy," September 2000
• Glasser Legal Works: Conference on "Patenting the com in .com," Spring 2000
• PLI's 20th Annual Institute on Computer Law, "Computer Technology Patents ...," March 2000
• SCI3, "Bargaining for Inevitable Harmonization," co-panelist with Lawrence J. Goffney, Deputy Commissioner for Patents, and Stephen Kunin, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Patents during a "Washington Meets the West" Seminar in Sunnyvale, Calif., January 1996

Experience

Legal Education

Graduate Education

Undergraduate Education

Professional Admissions / Qualifications

• California
• South Africa
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Honors and Recognitions

• Named as one of Intellectual Asset Management Magazine's "Top 250 Leading IP Strategists" (2009).