In the ever-evolving world of retail, where technology and innovation are reshaping the industry, managing intellectual property has never been more important. Sri Atluri, Walmart’s Chief IP Counsel, knows this all too well. In this episode of Clause 8 with host Eli Mazour, Sri emphasizes the critical balance between protecting innovations and fostering strategic growth within Walmart’s technological initiatives. She argues for the necessity of continual IP enforcement, detailing how both protec...
Oct 22, 2024•44 min
In this special episode of Clause 8, host Eli Mazour speaks with Ann Cathcart Chaplin at the Qualcomm Museum, which is right at the heart of Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego. Ann shares her journey from being an IP litigator to in-house counsel and from GM to Qualcomm. As General Counsel of Qualcomm, Ann oversees all legal matters for the world’s leading innovator of connectivity solutions. Before Qualcomm, she served in a variety of deputy general counsel roles at General Motors (GM). Ann s...
Oct 08, 2024•58 min
Laurie Fitzgerald joins Eli to tell the story of how she led Avanci to an 8-year overnight success. Avanci’s pioneering efforts to provide an efficient, simpler option for the automotive industry to license cellular SEPs are now widely heralded as one of the greatest stories of successful innovation in the patent world. Laurie, who has been with Avanci since 2018, shares her journey and the strategic decisions behind the one-stop shop licensing platform that now boasts participation from 70 lice...
Sep 24, 2024•51 min
What is the value of protecting intellectual property (IP)? That’s the fundamental question that most Chief IP Counsel need time to answer to help their companies succeed. However, they’re often bogged down by the daily demands of leading teams that are doing what’s necessary to make sure that they’re obtaining the necessary IP protection. When they do have a chance to pose and answer that question to business executives, they quickly realize that those business executives are concerned with mor...
Sep 10, 2024•40 min
We’re looking forward to sharing new episodes from this season starting next Tuesday, including special video episodes on www.VoiceOfIP.com and a series of interviews with the most significant corporate IP leaders in America. In the meantime, we wanted to share episodes released this summer: Former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and HTIA’s David Jones found a surprising amount of agreement regarding Section 101 on the first ever Clause 8 debate Iancu & Jones Debate Section 101 and Find Common G...
Sep 03, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Federal Circuit Judge Timothy Dyk discusses his memoir and provides priceless insights into how the Federal Circuit is operating today - 42 years after it was created in 1982 and 24 years after Dyk was confirmed to serve on it in 2000. This episode explores Dyk's perspectives on judges serving together at the Federal Circuit. His reflections and anecdotes offer a unique glimpse into the workings of the Federal Circuit, the decision-making process of a seasoned appellate judge, and various debate...
Aug 20, 2024•42 min
Clause 8 Podcast Show Notes Rob Rodrigues and Tatiana Alves - Brazil’s go-to attorneys for strong patent protection and effective enforcement - join Eli to talk about founding RNA Law and offer insider perspectives on successfully navigating the Brazilian patent system. Rob discusses how Brazil’s large market size and the predictability of obtaining injunctions is attracting foreign businesses looking for robust patent protection. He also talks about how Brazil is becoming an even more favorable...
Aug 06, 2024•47 min
Clause 8 favorites - former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and HTIA’s David Jones - return for the first ever Clause 8 debate! They debate Section 101, find common ground, and discuss possible paths forward for improving the state of patent eligibility in America. Selected Topics * Impact of Federal Circuit’s State Street decision: "golden age of business method patents” * Supreme Court’s Section 101 decisions: Bilski, Mayo, Myriad , and Alice * Iancu’s role & thoughts about Ariosa v. Sequenom ...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 6 min
His critics have called him “one of the most notorious patent trolls in America.” Many others have tried and failed to emulate his success. However, it’s hard to deny that Erich Spangenberg is in many ways a singular visionary in the world of patents. If there are celebrities in the patent world, it’s Erich Spangenberg. Thanks for reading Voice of IP! Subscribe for free to receive updates. As the founder of IPNav, he completed over 1000 licensing transactions - worth billions of dollars. To the ...
Jul 09, 2024•43 min
Why does an $850 billion pharma company obtain only 50 patents per year? Steve Caltrider, Chief IP Counsel at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, brings over 35 years of experience building valuable pharma patent portfolios and championing patent policies that promote innovation. Before Dana Farber, Steve rose to the role of General Patent Counsel at Eli Lilly. Steve has also served on the USPTO's Public Patent Advisory Committee and is currently the Chair of the ABA Section of IP Law. In this episode...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Florian Mueller shares his remarkable journey from leading a major fight against pro-software patent legislation in Europe to becoming one of the most influential voices in the IP world. For over a decade, his FOSS Patents blog became the go-to destination for anyone who wanted to follow developments related to standard-essential patents (SEPs). After a brief hiatus, Florian recently reemerged as the publisher of ip fray , which is quickly starting to play the role for all of IP that FOSS previo...
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 5 min
For almost 30 years - under the leadership of giants like Marshall Phelps, David Kappos, and Manny Schechter, IBM led in obtaining the most patents per year. However, in 2020, IBM made the decision to no longer pursue the goal of “numeric patent leadership.” It went from obtaining over 8500 patents in 2021 to, by some counts, less than 5000. Nonetheless, IBM remains one of the top American patentees. Mark Vallone joins Eli to discuss how he stepped into one of the most significant roles in the p...
Mar 28, 2024•55 min
J. John Lee is the Chief Counsel for IP in the US House of Representatives and helms the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, which is chaired by Congressman Darrell Issa. In that role, he is one of only four staffers in Congress who focus on IP issues and help set the agenda for what happens with America’s IP system. John joins Eli on this lively episode to discuss how he ended up in that role after serving as a Lead Judge on the PTAB, how he is currently worki...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr 18 min
In this special two-part episode, we delve into the creation, implementation, and strategic importance of Europe's Unified Patent Court (UPC) with UPC Judge Michael Fleuchaus and Dr. Benjamin Grau. The first part of the show highlights Judge Fleuchaus' experience as a newly appointed technical qualified judge at the UPC. Judge Fleuchaus discusses the motivations behind the UPC's establishment and overarching goal to streamline patent litigation across the European Union. He also discusses his ro...
Feb 29, 2024•56 min
This year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce brought together a diverse group of stakeholders and thought leaders in support of a framework of IP Principles. These IP Principles are part of an initiative to help America overcome a sustained effort to demonize intellectual property rights over the last 15-20 years. Patrick Kilbride and Brad Watts, from the U.S. Chamber’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), join Eli to talk about leading this initiative, the current narrative on IP rights and the f...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Matteo Sabattini is well known in DC patent policy circles from his previous role as Director of IP Policy at Ericsson. He now joins Eli from Italy to discuss his new role as President and Chief Licensing Officer of Convida, what he learned from his time in DC, keys to building a successful licensing program, why recent attempts to regulate licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs) are misguided, and much more! Selected Timestamps | 0:11:03 | How shifting value from devices to services &...
Dec 12, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Ed Murgitroyd joins Eli Mazour to tell the stories of building Murgitroyd into one of Europe’s biggest IP law firms and his disruptive new venture Hexos IP. Murgitroyd was founded by Ed’s father Ian Murgitroyd in Scotland in 1975. Ed eventually joined his father and became the CEO of Murgitroyd before it was acquired by a private equity firm, Sovereign, in 2019. On this episode, Ed talks about: Story of his father, Ian Murgitroyd, starting Murgitroyd in Glasgow in 1975 thanks to a loan from a my...
Dec 05, 2023•1 hr 23 min
Ofinno’s founder Esmael Dinan and CEO Kavon Nasabzadeh join the Clause 8 podcast to tell Ofinno’s unique story of succeeding in the patent monetization space and talk about its plans for the future. After spending years as an inventor at a large operating company, Esmael came to the conclusion that most such companies aren’t good at obtaining valuable standard essential patents (SEPs) on their own. This spurred him to found Ofinno in 2011, an R&D lab that would obtain such patents. He almost...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Amit Soussana is an IP attorney at one of Israel’s leading IP firms, Luzzato and Luzzatto. She is also one of more than 240 people – including babies, children, women, the elderly, and the disabled - who were brutally taken hostage by terrorists from Gaza on October 7th. More than 40 days later, almost all of them are still being held hostage. Kfir Luzzatto, the senior partner of Amit’s law firm, joins Clause 8 to talk about the story of that horrific day, Amit, the ongoing horror that the hosta...
Nov 19, 2023•23 min
Clause 8 is back for a new season! To start the season, Eli – for the first time on Clause 8 - shares his own thoughts at length about the hottest debates in the patent world. On this episode, Eli discusses: The horrific October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel and more than 240 Israelis still being held captured by the terrorists His “first IP interview” with then Israel Patent Office Director Asa Kling ChatGPT spurring changing attitudes towards potential of AI compared to when he interviewed DAB...
Nov 12, 2023•44 min
When Judge Pauline Newman helped create the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1982 to have exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases, no one could’ve guessed the drama that would follow almost 40 years after she joined the court herself. In April, Gene Quinn broke the news on IPWatchdog about a complaint filed by the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit against Newman for being unable to effectively discharge the duties of her office. Days later, Newman showed up and spoke at Fordham...
Aug 01, 2023•1 hr 11 min
Will Twitter's meager patent portfolio doom Elon Musk’s hopes of “strictly enforcing” Twitter’s IP rights? Eli is joined by return guest Gaston Kroub on this special episode to discuss how an unprecedented IP dispute between two of the world’s richest men might play out. In response to Meta successfully launching Threads, Musk’s go to lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg expressing "serious concerns that Meta...has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Tw...
Jul 24, 2023•31 min
USPTO Director Kathi Vidal’s decision to issue the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) is the latest major controversy surrounding the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The American Invents Act (AIA) created the PTAB to supposedly provide a cheaper, faster alternative to district court patent litigation. However, the PTAB quickly gained a reputation for being a patent “death squad” that allows defendants to repeatedly challenge the same patents until those patents are invalidated. ...
Jul 14, 2023•1 hr
Eli is joined by colleague Shawn Lillemo, Head of Software Development at their firm Harrity, to talk about the firm’s tech journey. Shawn and Eli talk about why and how the firm started its own software development team to create tools to improve how it handles its patent preparation and prosecution work, Shawn’s superstar team in Ukraine, the future role of AI, and much more: The slow embrace of technology by patent firms United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)’s adoption of technolo...
Jun 16, 2023•59 min
Thank you for listening to the Clause 8 podcast. We hope you’ve enjoyed the episodes so far this season. We’re on a short break but we’ll be back next week with more episodes. Please consider subscribing and taking a few moments to share this podcast with others and giving us a rating in your favorite podcast app. It helps this podcast reach new audiences. Eli is always welcome to hear any thoughts or ideas for the podcast. You can find him @EliMazour on Twitter. Or visit voiceofip.com for more ...
Jun 09, 2023•2 min
Joff Wild on Founding IAM for Chief IP Officers & EU Commission’s anti-SEP Crusade “It became obvious to me that IP was a lot more than laws and court decisions and regulations. IP was becoming a fundamental business asset, one that people could use to generate profits, build partnerships, go out into the markets, and raise cash. But no one was writing about that there was no coverage of that. So that said to me, there was an opportunity to create something new.” IAM’s founding editor Joff W...
May 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Eli is joined by the legend of the patent bar, the virtuoso of Federal Circuit decisions – Tom Irving. They discuss the rise of the pharmaceutical patent practice, the creation and current state of the Federal Circuit, why and how Tom mentored 1000s of patent attorneys, best practices for patent prosecution, and much more! Chief Judge Moore’s efforts to oust Judge Newman How Tom ended up practicing patent law Why there are so many patent attorneys from and in Utah Joining Finnegan, Henderson in ...
May 05, 2023•54 min
Tim Pohlmann is the founder and CEO of IPlytics, which provides software analytics tools for standard essential patents (SEPs). Tim is also one of the world’s leading economists that focuses on the subject of SEPs, and was recently commissioned by the EU Commission to provide empirical studies for their work regarding SEPs. Tim’s podcast, The SEP Couch, features discussions with a very diverse group of industry leaders, prominent attorneys, academics, and policy makers on the subject of SEPs). O...
Apr 21, 2023•59 min
David Jones is the Executive Director of the High Tech Inventors Alliance (HTIA), which advocates on patent policy issues on behalf of some of the largest tech companies in the world. When Dave became the head of HTIA in 2019, it seemed that DC was finally turning against the “patent troll” narrative driving patent policy in Congress and the executive branch. However, that did not last long: efforts to pass Section 101 reform failed to gain traction in Congress; the current administration rolled...
Apr 07, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Former Patent Commissioner Robert Stoll joins the Clause 8 podcast to talk about working his way up from being an examiner to being the commissioner over his 30+ year-long career at the USPTO. As commissioner, Bob helped former USTPO Director David Kappos implement the American Invents Act (AIA) and transform how the USPTO’s patent examiners operate. Before that, he served as USPTO’s head of the Office of Legislation and International Affairs under Director John Dudas. Now out of government, he ...
Mar 24, 2023•43 min