Team

Derek de Laat is the founder and President of FIN IP Group and one of the most recognized financial experts in the patent market. He advises patent owners, operating companies, investors, and law firms on the questions that determine patent value: what a portfolio is worth, what royalty it can command, and how to structure licensing, acquisition, financing, and enforcement strategies to realize that value.

Derek sets the firm’s strategic direction and leads its most complex mandates, including royalty rate and SEP pricing programs, patent acquisitions and divestitures, portfolio and litigation financing, and settlement and mediation support. Under his leadership, FIN IP Group has supported more than $10 billion in patent deals, helped raise more than $1 billion in portfolio and litigation financing, and completed more than 500 licensing, enforcement, and valuation engagements for leading patent licensing companies. He has personally developed hundreds of patent acquisition models and program royalty rates across wireless, video, software, and other technology markets.

Derek has more than 20 years of experience in patent licensing and finance. Before founding FIN IP Group, he was Vice President of IP Investments and Valuation at WiLAN and held patent licensing and monetization roles at BlackBerry and Rockstar Consortium. He has been named to the IAM Strategy 300 every year since 2019 and an IAM Strategy 300 Global Leader every year since 2023, with IAM describing him as “unparalleled in the realm of financial modelling.” He also served as Co-Chair of the Ottawa Chapter of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) from 2024 to 2026.

Julian Cupillari is a Senior Director at FIN IP Group, where he leads the firm’s patent valuation and financial modeling mandates. He advises technology companies, patent licensing companies, law firms, investment funds, inventors, and universities on the economic value of patent portfolios, delivering analysis that holds up in licensing negotiations, litigation, transactions, and board-level IP decisions.

Part of FIN IP Group since its founding, Julian oversees the strategy and delivery of client projects across the firm’s practice and leads its team of financial analysts. His work spans formal patent appraisals for transactions and financial reporting, royalty rate and comparable license analysis, acquisition pricing models, and economic analysis supporting litigation and settlement. Recent highlights include a fair value (ASC 820) appraisal of a patent portfolio acquired by a global technology company and leading the development of the economic proposals behind a parallel litigation campaign involving multiple companies.

Julian has been named to the IAM Strategy 300 every year since 2024 and brings more than a decade of financial modeling and valuation experience, backed by four professional designations spanning patent valuation, licensing, business valuation, and financial modeling. Earlier in his career, he led the business development team at the Financial Modeling Institute, a global provider of financial modeling accreditations, and worked on the US$3 billion acquisition of FRHI Hotels & Resorts by AccorHotels.

Allisha Lin is a Manager at FIN IP Group, where she leads royalty rate analysis and pricing for patent owners, licensing companies, and law firms. Her work supports patent licensing programs, SEP pricing, licensing negotiations, and disputes, drawing on comparable licenses, litigation outcomes, market data, and the economic value of patented technologies to develop commercially reasonable and defensible royalty rates.

Allisha manages projects from scoping through final delivery, working directly with clients on licensing strategy and pricing decisions while directing analyst teams. Her work includes unpacking license agreements to derive effective royalty rates, comparable license and apportionment analysis, and program rate development for portfolios across wireless, video, and other technology markets. She played an instrumental role in developing the firm’s proprietary database of more than 1,000 litigation-derived royalty rates, as well as its proprietary methodology for identifying and evaluating relevant comparables for client patent portfolios. She works closely with clients to translate complex economic analyses into practical licensing and negotiation strategies, with an emphasis on developing clear, defensible analyses that can withstand scrutiny in negotiations, mediations, and litigation.

In 2026, Allisha was named to the IAM Strategy 300 as one of the world’s leading IP strategists. She joined FIN IP Group with a background in data analysis and analytical modeling from Employment and Social Development Canada.

Andrew Kugler is a Manager at FIN IP Group, where he leads software development, AI integration, and client project management. He is responsible for the software, data infrastructure, and AI-enabled tools behind the firm’s royalty rate, valuation, and transaction analysis.

Andrew is a named inventor on seven granted patents, giving him first-hand insight into how patented technology is developed, protected, and commercialized. At FIN IP Group, he works with project teams to understand the technology behind client portfolios, from wireless and IoT systems to software and cloud platforms, and to translate technical subject matter into sound financial analysis. He also leads the firm’s analytical platforms, including the systems behind its proprietary royalty rate and patent transaction data and the reports it delivers to clients, and has increased the speed, scale, and consistency of both its analysis and its reporting.

Andrew joined FIN IP Group after 13 years in software development and technical leadership at BlackBerry. As a full stack developer, he wrote IoT software that scaled to tens of thousands of devices for enterprise customers in the intermodal shipping industry, and as a QA team lead he directed a team of eight in test automation, data visualization, and reporting.

Sheryl Macdonell is Operations Manager at FIN IP Group, where she oversees the operational and business development initiatives that support the firm’s growth and client relationships. She manages the processes that keep client work running smoothly, from intake and coordination through delivery.

Sheryl works closely with the leadership and project teams to improve internal processes, coordinate strategic initiatives, support client relationships, and ensure business priorities are executed effectively. She also leads the firm’s marketing, communications, and event management, including its presence at leading industry gatherings such as IPBC Global and IPBC Europe, helping strengthen FIN IP Group’s relationships with patent owners, law firms, and investors across the IP community. She brings a collaborative approach and a focus on finding creative ways to improve projects and workflows.

Sheryl brings more than 15 years of experience in the intellectual property sector. Before joining the firm, she held business development, client engagement, and marketing roles at the IP law firm Brion Raffoul LLP and at TechInsights, a leading provider of patent and technology intelligence.

Laura Bradshaw is Senior Legal Counsel at FIN IP Group, where she also serves as the firm’s General Counsel. She advises on patent licensing, intellectual property, and technology transactions, bringing a practitioner’s understanding of how license terms, deal structure, and legal risk shape the value of patent assets.

Laura works alongside the firm’s valuation and royalty rate teams on matters where legal and economic questions intersect, including the review of patent license agreements, acquisition and divestiture terms, and the agreements that govern licensing programs and portfolio transactions. She also oversees the firm’s own legal and contractual affairs.

Laura has more than 20 years of legal experience in private practice and senior in-house roles, much of it in the patent licensing and technology sectors. She most recently served as Senior Vice-President, Legal and Senior Counsel at Wi-LAN Inc., one of the industry’s most established patent licensing companies, and previously held legal positions at Research In Motion, Tundra Semiconductor, and Stikeman Elliott.

Deepro Sengupta is a Senior Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where he builds the financial models and quantitative analyses behind the firm’s patent valuation, royalty rate, and transaction work. He specializes in turning large, complex datasets, including licensing activity, patent transactions, product markets, and company financials, into clear, defensible conclusions about patent value.

Deepro applies Python programming, data science, and machine learning to the firm’s analytical work, developing tools that bring greater speed and precision to addressable revenue analysis, comparable license and transaction research, and the firm’s proprietary royalty rate and patent pricing data. He contributes across the full project life cycle, from research and modeling through to client-ready deliverables, on matters for patent licensing companies, operating companies, and law firms.

Deepro holds the Advanced Financial Modeler (AFM) accreditation, an MBA in Business Analytics, and graduate training in economics, a combination that brings both economic grounding and technical depth to the evaluation of patent portfolios.

Alexander Daicar is a Senior Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where he performs financial analysis and valuation of patent portfolios for licensing, transactions, and litigation. A Chartered Professional Accountant, Alex brings audit-level discipline to the firm’s work, from unpacking patent license agreements to identify effective royalty rates and key economic terms, to building the valuation and purchase-price analyses that support acquisitions, financial reporting, and tax.

Alex works across buy-side due diligence, patent valuation, and royalty rate analysis, examining license terms, licensee financials, and transaction data to reach rigorous conclusions that clients can rely on in negotiations and transactions.

He began his career in accounting and audit at KPMG and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, experience that underpins his work on valuation for financial reporting and his review of complex financial information.

Eric Tran is a Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where he works on the valuation, royalty rate, and licensing analysis of patent portfolios. He builds financial models, researches comparable licenses and patent transactions, and analyzes market and product data for licensing, monetization, and patent transaction projects.

Eric’s training in both finance and the medical sciences gives him a strong foundation for working with technical subject matter, helping project teams understand the technology behind a portfolio and connect it to its commercial value. He contributes to deliverables for patent licensing companies, operating companies, and law firms across the firm’s royalty rate and valuation practice.

Before joining FIN IP Group, Eric worked in research and financial analysis at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Aaron Cheung is a Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where he works on patent valuation, royalty rate, and licensing projects through market research and financial modeling. He researches the products, markets, and companies that use patented technology, helps identify potential licensees, and builds the addressable revenue analyses that help clients size licensing opportunities and price their portfolios.

Aaron brings experience in market and equity research, which he applies to evaluating company financials, product revenues, and the industry trends that drive patent value. He contributes to client deliverables across the firm’s licensing strategy, market research, and valuation work.

Morgan Combden is a Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where she works on patent valuation, royalty rate, and licensing assignments through financial analysis and research. She analyzes the market data, company financials, and licensing activity that inform the pricing of patent portfolios and the development of licensing strategies.

Morgan brings experience in financial analysis and investment research. Her background in finance, together with studies in communication and media, supports her work preparing clear, client-ready research, including market research reports and the analysis behind licensing and negotiation presentations.

Alex Liang is a Financial Analyst at FIN IP Group, where he works on patent transaction, valuation, and licensing matters. He builds financial models and conducts market and company research for patent acquisitions, divestitures, and portfolio sales, including acquisition models and bid pricing analysis.

Alex brings experience in sell-side advisory and search funds, with exposure to business valuation, deal processes, and investment evaluation. He applies that transaction perspective to the financial and commercial questions that determine what a patent portfolio is worth to buyers, sellers, and licensees.