The Article One Team

Cheryl Milone, Esq., B.S.E.E.

Founder and CEO

Cheryl Milone is the founder and CEO of Article One Partners, the world’s largest patent validation community (www.ArticleOnePartners.com). Ms. Milone created the global online community to add a crucial level of review to the U.S. patent system—strengthening legitimate patents and reducing unjust patent monopolies. Early success brought immediate interest from Fortune 500 clients, moved the U.S. Patent office to re-exam a patent based upon evidence uncovered by the Article One community, and led to recognition as the “Startup of the Year” by Business Insider – chosen by an elite judging panel of venture capitalists and top technology industry leaders.

Ms. Milone has advocated before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to procure patent rights, and her expertise in intellectual property and patent law has made her a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and events. In January 2010, Ms. Milone was invited to join President Obama as one of a select group of the nation’s top CEOs chosen to advise the White House in its Forum on Modernizing Government. In this role, Milone continues to help the Administration to streamline government operations, improve customer service, and maximize returns on information technology investments.

Prior to founding Article One Partners, Ms. Milone was a patent attorney and co-founder of the electronic patent group for Darby & Darby, P.C., one of the oldest intellectual property law firms in the world. Her experience includes representation of inventors, procurement of patents, preparation of validity opinions and patent case litigation. Earlier in her career, Lucent’s Advanced Micro-Technology Group requested that Ms. Milone replace six other outside counsels. She has held positions counseling on intellectual property rights at Roger & Wells, L.L.P. and Kenyon & Kenyon, L.L.P. Ms. Milone also implemented her in-depth knowledge of prior art in working as a patent counsel and sales officer for a patent research company from 2000 to 2001.

Ms. Milone is an inventor and patent holder. She is co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 6,074,339, Gambale et al. entitled, “Expandable Braid Device and Method for Radiation Treatment,” and has six pending patent applications for technology used by Article One. She earned her J.D. in 1992 from Georgetown University Law Center, and was a member of the Ethical Law Review. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Bucknell University.

Paul DiGiammarino

President

Paul DiGiammarino was recently recognized by Intellectual Asset Management magazine as one of the World’s Leading IP strategists. He is a serial entrepreneur who brings a distinguished record of success to Article One. That record includes his experience as acting President of Sapient, a publicly traded business and technology-consulting firm, whose revenues grew from $150 million to $500 million during his tenure.

Immediately prior to Article One, he was the founder and CEO of Anaqua, an intellectual property management software vendor. At Anaqua he drove the Company’s transformation into one of the leading global IP service providers. Anaqua supports more than 400,000 patents and trademarks for Microsoft, Qualcomm, Ford, Coca-Cola and other industry leaders. From 2002 to 2004, he was the CEO of litigation support software vendor Steelpoint (now owned by publicly traded Autonomy). At Steelpoint, he led a highly successful turnaround and the eventual sale of the company.

DiGiammarino’s 25+ year career in the intellectual property, legal and financial service industries also includes executive positions at American Management Systems (now CGI) where he founded two IP commercialization businesses. DiGiammarino holds a CPA and a dual degree in Accounting and Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Ray Felts, B.S.E.E.

Chief Operating Officer

Ray Felts is responsible for Sales & Marketing and Community Development. Ray previously was Vice President of Business Development for NineSigma, focused on building a global open innovation community and developing products and services to deliver customer satisfaction. Ray’s experience with other venture-backed startups includes Senior Vice President of Business Development and Services at PowerSteering Software (SaaS provider of Portfolio Management tools to R&D leaders of Global Fortune 500 clients) and Vice President of Professional Services at Surebridge (an Application Management and Hosting provider, acquired by NaviSite).

Ray has over 15 years experience in Science & Technology including product development responsibilities at Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and EMC. Ray has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California, and an MBA from Boston College.

Frances Weber, Esq., M.S., B.S., Biology

Executive Vice President

As Executive Vice President for Article One Partners, Frances Weber oversees research and operations while managing all strategic patent analyses for the company. Ms. Weber is an intellectual property attorney and business consultant with over 25 years experience working in patent law and life sciences. She has extensive experience with litigation and prosecution of patent and trademark cases. Most recently, Ms. Weber was of counsel with boutique Intellectual Property firm, Kalow & Springut.

For over five years, Ms. Weber was acting counsel for a number of startups in the entertainment and professional services industries. In addition, Ms. Weber served as the vice president of business development for a patent research company. In the late 90’s, Ms. Weber was the chief operating officer for the publisher of AlleyCat News, a monthly magazine covering Internet entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and professional services in New York City’s Silicon Alley.

Ms. Weber earned a bachelor’s in Biology from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a master’s in Biology from Fordham University where she was elected to Sigma Xi. She received her J.D. from Pace University.

Domenic A. Leo, Esq.

Senior Vice President, Sales

Domenic A. Leo, an attorney, is a respected thought leader in the intellectual property industry and brings more than 25 years of experience working with many of the world’s largest and most sophisticated law firms and corporations to Article One Partners.

In his most recent capacity as DataCert’s Senior Vice President, IP, he led the effort to lead the the industry’s worldwide initiative toward development of the industry’s Uniform Task Based Management System’s standard for IP coding. In that capacity he engineered the industry’s first dedicated IP solution for Global 1000 corporations. He also served as the company’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and helped the company achieve record growth.

Prior to DataCert, Dom served in multiple senior management roles at Information Master Data Center, a unit of Information Holdings, Inc when it was acquired by ThomsonReuters. As Vice President of Professional Services and Best Practices, he defined and guided the strategic objectives and operations of the company’s professional services and consulted with Global 1000 corporations and Am Jur 500 law firms. For a time he also led the organization’s patent annuity and trademark renewal departments managing more than 1,000 outside counsel and agents. Prior to Thomson, he was assistant general counsel for a Michigan-based savings & loan. His scope of responsibilities at the large savings and loan institution included management of several of the company’s departments in addition to protecting its company’s legal interests.

Dom is a member of many professional legal organizations including the Michigan Bar Association, the International Trademark Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Dom earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and public management from Oakland University and a juris doctorate from the Detroit College of Law.

Eric Baer

Vice President of Technology

Eric is responsible for product development and internal IT. He has over 15 years of web-based software development experience in roles from development to product management.

Most recently, Eric was Director, Product Management at PowerSteering Software. There he led the Lean Six Sigma product and worked closely with leading enterprise clients such as J&J, Praxair, Seagate and United Airlines.

Prior to PowerSteering, Eric worked at BMG, a leading Six Sigma training and consulting company. There he led the development of a market leading web-based project portfolio management product later acquired by PowerSteering. At GE, Eric worked in web development, six sigma and led major B2B web projects.

Eric holds a BA in Finance from the University of Iowa and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Oscar Bruce, Jr.

Associate Financial Analyst

Oscar Bruce conducts in-depth analyses of company and market conditions that are related to AOP’s pipeline of Patent Studies.

Mr. Bruce holds a B.S. in Management Engineering from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and an M.A. in Economics from New York University.

David DiGiammarino

Sales Support Manager

David DiGiammarino conducts both sales and marketing initiatives.

Mr. DiGiammarino holds a B.A. in Government from Connecticut College. His prior experience includes launching a crowdsourcing company, performing organizational consulting, and leading as Assistant Manager at Apple Inc.

Greg McKallagat

Community Development

Greg McKallagat supports the growth of our community and Researchers.

Mr. McKallagat holds a B.A. in Sociology from Princeton University. He has experience as an analyst at o3 Technology Solutions LLC, supporting firms such as HSBC and Northern Trust.

Bret D. Quigley

Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Beecher Carlson

Mr. Quigley is responsible for the Company’s financial operations, business analysis, financial and operational planning and financial reporting. He also oversees the Company’s technology group and helps lead merger and acquisition efforts.

Mr. Quigley has an extensive and diversified financial, operating and management background. Prior to joining Beecher Carlson, he was a Partner with Atlanta Equity Investors, a private equity firm based in Atlanta. Before that, he started and managed a consulting practice focused on financial services companies. Previously, he spent five years at Hobbs Group as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. At Hobbs Group, he worked closely with Tom Golub to help triple the size of the firm before selling to HRH. Before joining Hobbs Group, Bret spent ten years in investment banking. He began his career as a Certified Public Accountant with Price Waterhouse.

Mr. Quigley graduated number one in his class from both the MBA program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the University of Virginia, where he earned his BS in Commerce. He is a CPA and a member of the board of directors of HMSC Holdings Corp. (d/b/a Swett & Crawford), where he serves as Audit Committee Chairman.

Armins C. Rusis

Executive Vice President, Global Co-Head of Fixed Income, Markit

Armins Rusis joined Markit in 2008 as an Executive Vice President and Global Co-Head of Fixed Income, sharing responsibility for the firm’s data and analytics products with Kevin Gould, EVP. Prior to Markit, Mr. Rusis worked at Morgan Stanley for 17 years, most recently as Managing Director and Head of U.S. Credit Trading and Global Head of Securitized and Structured Credit Trading. He was a member of the Morgan Stanley European management committee and served as the Morgan Stanley Board Director of Markit for three years.

Mr. Rusis holds a B.A. in Economics and Accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a M.S. from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Felix D’Arienzo, B.S.E.E.

Electrical, Consulting Senior Patent Analyst, Partner Davidson, Davidson & Kappell, LLC

Mr. D’Arienzo’s practice includes all aspects of intellectual property law, including prosecution, opinions and litigation. He has supervised major patent filing programs for Fortune 100 companies. These filing programs included significant research and development efforts in the computer hardware and software industries. He has prosecuted through successful appeal important patent applications directed to software developments in the field of artificial intelligence.

Mr. D’Arienzo has a wide range of experience both in private practice and in in-house positions. He was previously a partner at Kenyon & Kenyon in New York, and founded that firm’s Silicon Valley office. After leaving Kenyon & Kenyon in 2000, he became Director of Intellectual Property at Wind River Systems, Inc. in Alemeda California. He has also held the position of Corporate Patent Counsel at Conner Peripherals, Inc., in San Jose, and was a partner at the firm of Mandeville & Schweitzer in New York, New York in the mid 1980’s. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York, in the United States District Court for the Southern and Easter Districts of New York, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and is admitted to practice before the United States Patent & Trademark Office. He has a Bachelor of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Juris Doctor from St. John’s University, where he was a member of the St. John’s Law Review).