IBM Master Inventor is an honorific title bestowed by the IBM Corporation to a qualifying employee. The qualification and appointment to Master Inventor is governed by the value to IBM of an inventor's contribution to the patent portfolio, and through defensive publication. IBM weighs many aspects of an inventor's contributions, including impact of invention through licensing, inclusion in product, and percentage of patents with a measurable impact. IBM also considers an individual's contribution to the inventing community inside IBM, whether by acting as a patent reviewer, or providing feedback and guidance to new inventors.
IBM Master Inventor is a privilege and title afforded to IBM inventors who have exhibited sustained invention activity. Each Master Inventor is reviewed every three years to ensure they maintain invention and mentoring activity. To be selected as an IBM Master Inventor, an inventor must (1) create valuable inventions resulting in patents and defensive publications that are in line with IBM’s criteria, and (2) support the IBM patent process such as by coaching other inventors, serving on invention development teams (IDTs), and helping the IBM IP Law organization in other ways. The IBM Master Inventor program recognizes IBM’s leaders in the patent community. The objectives of the program are:
Nominees to the Master Inventor program must have contributed to IBM patent process through invention participation and least two of the remaining three areas:
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights.
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand-alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain.
A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm.
Pro bono publico, usually shortened to pro bono, is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. The term traditionally referred to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who are unable to afford them. More recently, the term is used to describe specialist services provided by any professional free of charge to an individual or community.
Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson was an American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions relate to warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive. Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history.
Open Invention Network (OIN) is an intellectual property rights company based in Durham, United States. It operates as an entity specialising in the acquisition of patents, subsequently granting royalty-free licenses to its community members. These members are obligated not to assert their own patents against Linux and its associated systems and applications as per the terms of the licensing agreements established by OIN.
This is a list of legal terms relating to patents and patent law. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention claimed therein, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or their successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.
Under some patent laws, patents may be obtained for insurance-related inventions. Historically, patents could only cover the technological aspects of a new insurance invention. This is still the case in most countries. In the United States, however, recent court decisions have encouraged more inventors to file patent applications on methods of doing business. These patents may be used to get more comprehensive coverage of improvements in basic insurance processes, such as the methods of calculating premiums, reserves, underwriting, etc. This is causing controversy in the insurance industry as some see it as a positive development and others see it as a negative development.
The Peer To Patent project is an initiative that seeks to assist patent offices in improving patent quality by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer To Patent is the first social-software project directly linked to decision-making by the federal government.
The Lemelson Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) private foundation. It was started in 1993 by Jerome H. Lemelson and his wife Dorothy. The foundation held total net assets of US$444,124,049 at the end of 2020 and US$484,432,021 at the end of 2021. The Foundation seeks to harness the power of invention and innovation to accelerate climate action and improve lives around the world.
Andrew James Stanford-Clark is a British information technology research engineer, specialising in telemetry and publish/subscribe messaging. In July 2017 he was appointed IBM CTO for UK and Ireland Previously, he led a research team at IBM. He is a Member of the IBM Academy of Technology, an IBM Master Inventor and visiting professor at Newcastle University. He also serves on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) peer review college and regularly delivers public talks.
Defensive patent aggregation (DPA) is the practice of purchasing patents or patent rights to keep such patents out of the hands of entities that would assert them against operating companies. The opposite is offensive patent aggregation (OPA) which is the purchasing of patents in order to assert them against companies that would use the inventions protected by such patents and to grant licenses to these operating companies in return for licensing fees or royalties. OPA can be practiced by operating companies or non-practicing entities (NPEs)
Oxford University Innovation Limited (OUI) is a British technology transfer and consultancy company created to manage the research and development (R&D) of University spin-offs. OUI is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Oxford, and is located on Botley Road, Oxford, England. OUI was previously known as Isis Innovation (1988–2016) and Oxford University Research and Development Ltd (1987–1988).
Patent monetization refers to the generation of revenue or the attempt to generate revenue by a person or company by selling or licensing the patents it owns.
Peer-to-Patent Australia was an initiative designed to improve the patent examination process and the quality of issued patents by connecting the review of pending patents to an open network of experts online.
Keith Daniel Bergelt is an American corporate executive and former U.S. diplomat. He is CEO of Open Invention Network where he is responsible for coordinating the establishment and maintenance of a patent ‘‘no-fly” zone around Linux. As such, he is responsible for safeguarding an open and competitive landscape in key technology markets such as back-office transaction processing, mission critical IT applications, mobile communications/smartphones, and desktop computing.
The Japan Patent Attorneys Association (JPAA), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is the only one national, professional bar association of Japanese patent attorneys (Benrishi) with approximately 10,000 members.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents:
Patexia Inc. is a privately held intellectual property (IP) company based in Santa Monica, California, U.S. The company was founded in 2010 with the mission to enhance transparency and efficiency in the IP field through a leveraging of the knowledge of an IP-based online community of researchers, attorneys, and stakeholders—described by the company as a “multidisciplinary social network”—for the purpose of information crowdsourcing. In addition, the company combines patent and litigation databases to provide analytical tools regarding the IP field, including the details of attorneys, law firms, companies, and examiners, for its community members.
Rhonda Childress is an IBM Fellow Vice President of GTS. She has earned the title of being the first Services woman to be called an IBM Master Inventor, Security Fellow, and the first Fellow from a predominantly African-American college from spending her whole career in SO. She was also the first IBM fellow from a Historical Black University. Childress is a prolific inventor with over 200 patents, 130 of which are related to the management of systems, cyber security, mobile, aircraft, and IoT. In 2018, she was inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame for her efforts in her career at IBM. Childress is one of 25 female IBM fellow in IBM's history.