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Licensing's In ... Lawyer's Out
Licensing is too important to be left to lawyers. Or so goes the current thinking at Hewlett-Packard Development, L.P., where the only thing less popular than a long-lasting inkjet cartridge is an attorney brainstorming royalty deals. For years, Stephen Fox, the company's longtime chief intellectual property lawyer, had been the champion of a ramped-up licensing strategy: mining the company's intellectual property for revenue opportunities, pushing for a less ad hoc, more systematic approach to licensing, delivering what he often publicly called a “more entrepreneurial view” of the company's IP portfolio. But entrepreneurship, HP ultimately decided, was best left to entrepreneurs. In January, when the company announced a new licensing organization designed to increase royalty revenue, it gave the green light to Fox's ideas ' and put the brakes on Fox himself. The new licensing group would be run by a veteran HP manager.
Some lawyers might call that a raw deal. Fox, who has spent 36 years at HP (18 as its chief IP lawyer), calls it “optimum effectiveness.” That may sound like team play by a guy with nearly four decades on the team, but Fox is adamant that a separate organization, run by someone else, who will do the strategizing he used to do is exactly what he had in mind. Licensing, Fox says, “works well when placed in a business activity that is accountable for profit and loss, rather than in the legal department, which is an expense center.”
Yet the new regime is a drastic change for HP, whose licensing program had always been considered successful. Even companies that have aggressively licensed their intellectual property have not cut the attorneys out of the loop so dramatically. Gerald Rosenthal, who heads International Business Machines Corporation's billion-dollar-a-year licensing program, may be an engineer turned manager, but he has a J.D., too. That's pretty much the only thing that Joe Beyers, HP's vice president of intellectual property licensing, doesn't have. Beyers is a 29-year company veteran who has done everything from designing chips to managing HP's Internet business unit to spearhead planning and business development of its computer systems business. In his new role, Beyers will be approving, if not creating, every licensing deal at the company.
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?