Shawn Lillemo on Building Software Tools for a Patent Firm

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 technology and where they are now

• How Shawn’s background as an attorney, patent examiner, and creating software for his college’s facilities department led him to his current role

• First macro created for Harrity

• Creation of Patentprufer - a tool for tracking information about patent examiners

• Lessons learned from building an enterprise software team at a law firm

• Stories about Shawn’s team building its first software tools

• How Shawn’s team in Ukraine has managed to continue to successfully develop software during the war

• Funneling and prioritizing endless amount of ideas to create valuable software patent tools

• Five year journey of creating and launching PatentHub, Harrity’s enterprise task management system

• Whether AI will replace patent attorneys