AST Names Ray Strimaitis as Vice President, Corporate Development & Global Strategy

Former Yahoo! Inc. IP Chief Brings Over 25 Years of Experience as a Leading IP Strategist to Newly Created Global Role

PRESS RELEASE UPDATED: NOV 13, 2017 11:00 EST
PRINCETON, N.J., November 13, 2017 (Newswire.com) – AST, the leading provider of proactive patent risk mitigation solutions, has named Ray Strimaitis to the newly created role of Vice President, Corporate Development & Global Strategy. Strimaitis will report directly to Russell W. Binns, Jr., CEO of AST and will be based in Silicon Valley. Strimaitis joins AST after serving as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Yahoo! Inc. Strimaitis will be responsible for leading AST’s Member acquisition strategy and will play a critical role in developing the organization’s global growth strategy, including addressing the needs of AST Members and developing further programs and solutions for current and prospective Members of AST.

The appointment gives AST a permanent presence on the West Coast, an area of increasing strategic importance to AST due to the high concentration of technology companies in Silicon Valley as well as the region’s proximity to Asia. Strimaitis’ strategic priorities will include expanding AST Membership across a range of technologies including cloud storage, content distribution, consumer electronics, wireless and semiconductors. In addition, Strimaitis will identify potential new geographic markets and industries for expansion, and assist in developing new business models for Membership growth based on AST’s unique value proposition.

“Ray brings a distinguished track record as a visionary executive and IP counsel with expertise that spans all aspects of the IP markets,” said Russell W. Binns, Jr., CEO of AST. “I am confident that Ray’s global experience and strategic vision will prove instrumental to our evolution as an organization as we seek new ways to better serve the interests of our Members, including expanding into new geographic markets and industries. Furthermore, Ray’s deep familiarity with the AST organization gives him a valuable perspective as to the benefits of our unique, nonprofit collaborative and to the challenges that current and prospective Members face when accessing the patent marketplace. I am delighted to welcome him to AST in this new capacity.”

“I know firsthand the unique and valuable role the organization plays in helping companies mitigate patent risk and in providing data and insights on the latest happenings in the IP marketplace,” said Ray Strimaitis. “I look forward to working closely with Russ and the rest of the AST team to advance AST’s evolution and leadership position in providing effective patent risk mitigation and strategies that benefit companies across the globe.”

As Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), Strimaitis led a global team of IP professionals and was responsible for setting patent strategy, monetizing the Yahoo! patent portfolio, mitigating patent risk, guiding patent advocacy and overseeing all trademark/copyright matters. He established and led a program to monetize Yahoo! patents that generated $600 million in patent sales and license transactions. Strimaitis also led the formation of Excalibur IP, LLC – a wholly owned Yahoo! subsidiary that was created to further optimize patent value to Yahoo! shareholders.

Before joining Yahoo! Strimaitis served in various legal, management, marketing and sales roles at IBM. He received his J.D. from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cleveland State University.

About AST
AST is the leading provider of proactive patent mitigation solutions. We offer a highly efficient, cost-effective and proven method of mitigating the risk of patent assertions and litigation avoidance by enabling our Members to collectively purchase assets available on the secondary market. Because we are an independent, not-for-profit cooperative, we provide a trusted and fully transparent way for Members to analyze patent purchase opportunities including triage, evaluation and acquisition services. AST’s Members include top global companies from a wide range of industries including Ford, Google, Honda, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Philips, SAP, Sony, Uber and Verizon. For more information on AST please visit http://www.ast.com.

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Cindy Stoller
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