SPEAKERS
The Counterfeit Conundrum:
Analyzing Global Consumer Realities in Online Marketplaces
IPR Center | Arlington, VA
September 20, 2023
Saleem Alhabash
Associate Professor, Public Relations and Social Media, MSU and A-CAPP Affiliated Faculty
Bio
Saleem Alhabash is an associate professor of Public Relations and Social Media at Michigan State University’s Department of Advertising + Public Relations, where he also co-directs the Media and Advertising Psychology (MAP) Lab. His research focuses on the processes and effects of new and social media within the context of persuasion. More specifically, his research investigates the cognitive and emotional responses, and psychological effects associated with using new and social media. His research is geared toward understanding how new communication technologies can be used as persuasive tools, most recently in relation to marketing of alcohol as well as digital aggression across the lifespan. He also studies how new and social media can facilitate cross-cultural and international communication, with emphasis on changing attitudes and stereotypes of foreign nations. In 2014, he was named the inaugural recipient of the American Academy of Advertising’s Mary Alice Shaver Promising Professor Award. His research won best article, top paper, and top poster awards at national and international conferences. Saleem received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Pre-academia, he worked in a youth nonprofit organization focusing on media and well-being.
Cindy Braddon
Head of Communications and Public Policy, TRACIT
Bio
Cynthia H. Braddon has been actively leading communications and advocacy campaigns on trade and investment issues for decades. As President of the Braddon Group, she provides a variety of strategic communications and government affairs support for corporate and trade association clients.
Prior to forming the Braddon Group in 2016, she was Vice President of International Affairs for S&P Global (formerly McGraw Hill Financial), where she focused on global trade and investment issues, addressing access barriers for foreign markets, developing relationships with business and government leaders globally, and promoting the corporation worldwide. She was lead support for the Corporation’s Chairman Terry McGraw when he served as Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and its Research Foundation, Chairman of the U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB), and Chairman of U.S. Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. From 1992 to 2013, Cindy was Vice President of Global Government Affairs for The McGraw-Hill Companies, where she advanced its legislative/regulatory agenda in Washington and abroad on key issues including digital content, e-commerce policy, intellectual property protection, credit ratings and financial benchmarks, education, privacy and trade policy.
Cindy has held leadership positions for a number of industry associations and coalitions including the USCIB, ICC, US-India Business Council, US-China Business Council, ICC G20 CEO Advisory Group, Business-20 Trade and Investment Task Force, Business Roundtable’s Washington Representatives, and the Chairman of the Board of the Software and Information Industry Association.
Cindy currently serves on the Board of the USCIB, the Board of USCIB’s Foundation, is a member of USCIB’s Trade and Investment Committee and its Anti-Illicit Trade Committee.
Pat Huddleston
Director, Information and Media PhD Program, Advertising and Public Relations, and A-CAPP Affiliated Faculty, MSU
Bio
Patricia Huddleston is a professor of retailing in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations and director of the information and media PhD program at Michigan State University. She is an adjunct faculty member with the Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (ACAPP). She teaches consumer behavior, retail strategy, and strategic brand communication courses. Her current research focuses on eye-tracking to evaluate consumer information processing of point-of-purchase retail display elements (e.g., signage, price) and how these elements motivate purchase intention. This research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program and Horticulture Research Institute. Her work has been published in publications such as the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, PLOS, and the Journal of Product and Brand Management. Recently, she has collaborated with the A-CAPP Center and Drs. Saleem Alhabash and Anastasia Kononova on a 17-country study to understand global attitudes and behavior toward counterfeit products.
Kari Kammel
Director, A-CAPP Center, MSU
Bio
Kari is the director of the A-CAPP Center and maintains an active research agenda on legal issues pertaining to trademark counterfeiting, U.S. state and federal law, e-commerce and social media liability for trademark counterfeiting, public international and intellectual property legal issues, and the impact of culture in the Middle East on intellectual property and trademark enforcement. She has testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee based on her research. She runs the Center’s education programming, including executive education, the professional certificate in brand protection, the Center’s student internship program and student placement. She also heads outreach to brand protection stakeholders for the center.
Prior to coming to the center, she spent a significant time working, traveling, and living in the Middle East, including Egypt, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Jordan, and others. She was Deputy Chief of Party at DePaul College of Law’s Iraq office, where she managed rule of law programs; and Deputy Executive Director in the Chicago office. She is a licensed attorney in Illinois and Michigan with a J.D. from DePaul University, an M.A. in Political Science from the American University in Cairo, and a B.A. from the University of Chicago. She is serving her second three-year term on the Academic Specialist Advisory Committee at MSU, where she has been chair, vice-chair, and chair of the promotion subcommittee. She is also an adjunct professor of law at MSU’s College of Law, where she teaches Trademark Counterfeiting, Food Counterfeits, and International Intellectual Property. Additionally, she is a member of INTA and on the anti-counterfeiting sub-committee, AIPLA, and the ABA.
Summer Kostelnik
Policy Advisor, Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Executive Office of the United States President
Bio
Summer Kostelnik serves as policy advisor in the Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) in the Executive Office of the President, where she advises senior officials on matters related to all areas of intellectual property and coordinates within the United States government on the development of intellectual property policy and strategy domestically and abroad. Prior to joining IPEC, Summer was a Patent Attorney in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In that role, she advised the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO on domestic and international patent issues. Earlier in her career, Summer worked as a Patent Examiner in the field of medical devices.
Ms. Kostelnik holds bachelor of science degree in bioengineering and a Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
Holly Lance
Attorney Advisor, Office of Policy & International Affairs, United States Patent and Trademark Office
Bio
Holly is an attorney advisor in the office of policy and international affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As a member of the enforcement team, Ms. Lance focuses on anti-counterfeiting and anti-piracy issues domestically and abroad. She devotes substantial time to public awareness work, including the USPTO’s Go For Real Anti-Counterfeiting campaign (https://www.ncpc.org/goforreal). Ms. Lance’s international work focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, where she promotes and advocates for improved protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the region through capacity building and technical assistance programs. Prior to joining the USPTO, Ms. Lance was in private practice, where she worked with clients of all sizes – from startups to Fortune 500 companies – on trademark, copyright and internet law issues, including counseling, trademark and copyright prosecution, enforcement and litigation. Ms. Lance holds a bachelor of arts degree, cum laude, in cultural anthropology and public policy studies from Duke University, and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School.
Jim Mancuso
Director, National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and A-CAPP Advisory Board Liaison
Bio
James ‘Jim’ Mancuso is currently the director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. In this position, he manages the federal government’s response to combat global intellectual property theft, protect national security, and ensure public health and safety. As a decorated federal law enforcement agent and civil servant, Mr. Mancuso has served and protected communities around the world for more than 27 years. He is a senior executive service member, spearheading transformational investigative efforts within Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Prior to this assignment, Mr. Mancuso served as the special agent in charge for HSI Baltimore, Maryland. During this time, Mr. Mancuso led and supported more than 250 special agents, intelligence analysts, task force officers and professional administrative staff charged with enforcing over 400 violations of U.S. laws by investigating transnational criminal organizations and terrorist networks that threaten or seek to exploit America’s legitimate travel, trade, cyber and financial systems for their illicit purposes.
Mr. Mancuso previously served as the HSI Attaché to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, and Gibraltar while posted at the U.S. Embassy in London, England. In this role, he provided investigative oversight in support of HSI’s critical international mission while serving as the agency advisor to the U.S. Ambassador. Earlier in his career, he served as the deputy assistant director for the Workforce Management Division in HSI Headquarters where he was responsible for all HSI human resources efforts emphasizing diversity and inclusion for a globally dispersed workforce consisting of over 10,000 employees working in 220 U.S. cities and 80 international offices in 53 countries.
Mr. Mancuso began his law enforcement career in 1995 with the U.S. Department of Justice and later became a special agent with the U.S. Customs Service’s Office of Investigations in San Diego, California. Mr. Mancuso held multiple leadership roles, including group supervisor of the Methamphetamine Smuggling Task Force and the Financial Investigations Unit before serving as an assistant special agent in charge in San Diego, California.
Mr. Mancuso holds a bachelor of arts degree in English, media communications & writing from High Point University, North Carolina. He is a Maryland native and is married with three daughters.
Jennifer Scoggins Hanks
Director, Brand Protection, American Apparel and Footwear Association
Bio
As the chief advocate and spokesperson for AAFA on intellectual property (IP) and brand protection issues, Jennifer Scoggins Hanks serves as the staff liaison to AAFA’s Brand Protection Council. She connects with government officials; members of Congress; and representatives of global e-commerce, social, and digital platforms to shape IP policy, protect U.S. branded products, and advance AAFA member online and offline priorities. Jennifer’s unique background of public policy, advocacy, coalition management, and strategic communications experience was earned serving across a series of bicoastal public and private sector positions, including with a Washington D.C. public affairs firm, CNN Worldwide, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Her career began working in the California State Legislature and the California Governor’s Office.
Carl Settlemyer
Senior Attorney, Advertising Practices, Federal Trade Commission
Bio
Carl Settlemyer is a senior staff attorney in the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Advertising Practices, where he has worked on numerous consumer protection matters involving online commerce since 2006. Before joining the FTC, Mr. Settlemyer was in private practice at law firms in Washington, DC. Mr. Settlemyer holds degrees from the University of Maryland and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.
Zach Toczynski
Senior Director, Global Brand Protection, Levi Strauss & Co. and A-CAPP Advisory Board Member
Bio
In 2013, Zach Toczyński joined Levi Strauss & Co. as Sr. Director of Global Brand Protection overseeing all global programs related to Anti-Counterfeiting, online enforcement and trademark infringement matters for LS&Co. brands Levi’s®, Beyond Yoga®, Dockers®, DENIZEN® and Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.™. Before his position at Levi Strauss & Co., Zach worked for the Monroe Country Legislature of New York State as the Legislative Assistant to the Office of the Majority from 1996-1999. In 2000, Zach joined Aristotle International, Inc. (a political consulting/software firm) in Washington, DC, where he was Manager of Training Operations. From there, Zach joined the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a U.S. association exclusively dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games where he spent over 13 years a team leader in the associations Anti-Piracy Department as Senior Manager, Anti-Piracy Training and Investigations. Zach holds a Bachelors of Arts in Public Communication from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Alaina van Horn
Chief, Intellectual Property Enforcement (IPE) Branch, Office of Trade, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Bio
Alaina van Horn currently serves as the Chief of the Intellectual Property Enforcement (IPE) Branch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Trade, where she supervises a team of attorneys and paralegals specializing in border enforcement of intellectual property rights. Immediately prior to this position she was detailed to the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) in the Executive Office of the President, as a Policy Advisor specializing in customs law. Prior to joining the IPEC she was a Senior Attorney-Advisor in the Intellectual Property Rights Branch of CBP’s Office of Trade for over a decade, where she provided legal support to all ports of entry on border enforcement of trademarks and copyrights, adjudicated administrative petition for relief from seizure, issued binding rulings and infringement determinations, and administered patent and trade secrets-based exclusion orders issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission. Ms. van Horn has conducted numerous capacity building trainings on border enforcement of intellectual property rights to foreign governments, international organizations, and domestic audiences in both the public and private sectors. Ms. van Horn received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from New York University, a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Catholic University, Columbus School of Law, a Masters of Arts (M.A.) degree from Catholic’s Graduate School of Philosophy, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from The George Washington University Law School. Ms. van Horn is currently pursuing a Masters degree in International Relations at the Harvard University Extension School.
Kathi Vidal
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and
Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Bio
Kathi Vidal serves as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – America’s Innovation Agency. As the chief executive of the USPTO, she leads one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $4 billion. She is the principal IP advisor to the President and the Administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, and is focused on incentivizing and protecting U.S. innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity, and helping American workers and businesses compete and collaborate, especially in key technology areas and across demographics. As Director of the USPTO, Vidal is working to expand American innovation for and from all, including serving as the Vice Chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation (CI2), alongside Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo and the Council members; serving as a Co-Chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE); and the Co-Founder, with the Secretary, of the Women’s Entrepreneurship (WE) initiative.
Prior to leading the USPTO, Director Vidal held top leadership positions at Winston & Strawn LLP and Fish & Richardson P.C. She has served a wide range of clients, from individual inventors and entrepreneurs, to some of our country’s most well-known and successful companies. Director Vidal holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, has five years of industry experience in manufacturing and design, and has deep technical expertise in a myriad of technologies, from consumer products to artificial intelligence. In her various roles, Director Vidal has received numerous accolades, created innovative initiatives and programs, and been recognized as a trailblazer and thought leader.
Director Vidal’s full bio is available on the USPTO website.
Kevin Weaver
Senior Director, Global Brand Protection, Technology & Innovation, Johnson & Johnson
Bio
Kevin Weaver is the senior director of brand protection technology and innovation at Johnson & Johnson. For the past 10 plus years, he has been responsible for developing and deploying innovative solutions that combat the risks of illicit trade (e.g. counterfeits, illicit diversion and tampering) for the Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Weaver has over 30 years of experience working for Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg Company, and Computer Sciences Corporations across various roles developing competencies within supply chain, commercial, legal, data and analytics, strategic planning and architecture, business and market intelligence and information technology. Since August 2013, he has served on the Michigan State University (MSU) A-CAPP Industry Advisory Board and from 2019 to 2021 serviced as president of the board. In 2018, he was recognized with the Brand Protection Pioneering Award from his industry peers. Additionally, he serves on many customer advisory boards within the brand protection industry. He previously served on the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) Board of Directors along with several other industry and academic positions throughout his career.