Law Department Management Blog
An article from IP Law & Bus., Vol. 6, Sept. 2008 at 41, extols the changes the chief legal officer of LexisNexis, Kenneth Thompson, instituted after he took over in 2005. The division of Reed Elsevier soon “had a patent review board, an incentive program that rewards employees for inventions, an intranet site giving information on the patenting process and the incentive plan, and life-cycle management of the patents the company does obtain.” In addition, “In-house patent attorneys attend senior management meetings of business units and meet with researchers to actively find inventions to protect.”
Each of these initiatives is important for legal departments. This blog has material on all of them except life-cycle management (See my post of March 25, 2008: patent activities except litigation with 49 references.); and June 25, 2008: patent lawyers pay off.).