IBM Master Inventor

Last updated

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:

According to one Master Inventor [1] the citation reads:

Each year, IBM asks a small group of employees to join the ranks of Master Inventor. This group of people is asked to assist in the identification of new inventions and mentor others in the use of the patent process, among other things. The invitation to become a Master Inventor is based on the value to IBM of an inventors' United States patents during the three prior calendar years. This achievement is significant because it is the result of a cumulative contribution to the IBM patent portfolio, including Corporate Patent Portfolio Awards, Division Patent Portfolio Awards, and Division Supplemental Patent Issuance Awards.

Stories about a few master inventors appear in IBM web pages and external media. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Invention</span> Novel device, material or technical process

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. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who are unable to afford them.

TRIZ is “the next evolutionary step in creating an organized and systematic approach to problem solving. The development and improvement of products and technologies according to TRIZ are guided by the objective Laws of Engineering System Evolution. TRIZ Problem Solving Tools and Methods are based on them.” In another description, TRIZ is "a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science-fiction author Genrich Altshuller (1926-1998) and his colleagues, beginning in 1946. In English the name is typically rendered as the theory of inventive problem solving, and occasionally goes by the English acronym TIPS.

Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson was an American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions and works in the fields in which he patented have made possible, either wholly or in part, innovations like automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players. Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history.

Patent prosecution describes the interaction between applicants and their representatives, and a patent office with regard to a patent, or an application for a patent. Broadly, patent prosecution can be split into pre-grant prosecution, which involves arguing before, and sometimes negotiation with, a patent office for the grant of a patent, and post-grant prosecution, which involves issues such as post-grant amendment and opposition.

In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics. Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities which do not practice their asserted patent may not be considered "patent trolls" when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.

Patents are legal instruments intended to encourage innovation by providing a limited monopoly to the inventor in return for the disclosure of the invention. The underlying assumption is that innovation is encouraged because an inventor can secure exclusive rights and, therefore, a higher probability of financial rewards for their product in the marketplace or the opportunity to profit from licensing the rights to others. The publication of the invention is mandatory to get a patent. Keeping the same invention as a trade secret rather than disclosing it in a patent publication, for some inventions, could prove valuable well beyond the limited time of any patent term but at the risk of unpermitted disclosure or congenial invention by a third party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of United States inventions (after 1991)</span>

A timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Contemporary era to the present day, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Patent protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerrie Holley</span> American research computer scientist

Kerrie Lamont Holley is an American software architect, author, researcher, consultant, and inventor. He recently joined Industry Solutions, Google Cloud. Previously he was with UnitedHealth Group / Optum, their first Technical Fellow, where he focused on ideating healthcare assets and solutions using IoT, AI, graph database and more. His main focus centered on advancing AI in healthcare with an emphasis on deep learning and natural language processing. Holley is a retired IBM Fellow. Holley served as vice president and CTO at Cisco responsible for their analytics and automation platform. Holley is known internationally for his innovative work in architecture and software engineering centered on the adoption of scalable services, next era computing, service-oriented architecture and APIs.

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.

Barry Appelman is recognized as being the father of the "buddy list" and AOL instant messenger. Companies had been using crude forms of Instant messaging within their own networks for over forty years, but the idea of presence, i.e. who is logged on at any given time, was non existent. It was not until Appelman, and his colleagues at the Thomas Watson Research Center, first began to write programs on the mainframe system letting each other know when they were actually online, that modern day Instant Messaging was born.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Stanford-Clark</span> British information technology research engineer

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.

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. According to a 2006 survey of patent owners at the European Patent Office, about half of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) take patents for monetary reasons.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leahy–Smith America Invents Act</span>

The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the Patent Act of 1952 and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate in its previous session.

Yoram Ofek was a Marie Curie Chair and full professor in the Information Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Trento, Italy. He was the inventor of 45 US and European patents and published more than 120 journal and conference papers. He invented several novel architectures for networking, computing and storage. He was elected IEEE Fellow in 2006 for his contributions to switching, scheduling and synchronization in data networks.

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.

References

  1. Dharmendra S Modha's Cognitive Computing Blog Archived 2013-12-17 at the Wayback Machine .
  2. A Master Inventor at work .
  3. IBM Master Inventor Takes Cell Chip Beyond Games .
  4. Meet IBM's Mark Smith, Master Inventor, San Jose, CA .
  5. 150 Patents Later, What One Female Inventor Learned About Innovation .
  6. "Intrapreneurs And Patents: Lessons Learned". Forbes. Retrieved 10 Feb 2016.
  7. Sushain Pandit, Youngest Master Inventor .
  8. Interview with a serial inventor .
  9. Dimitri Kanevsky: Master of invention .
  10. IBM celebrates Master Inventors .
  11. Bob Friedlander, IBM Master Inventor .
  12. "How this regular programmer became a 'Master Inventor' at IBM". Business Insider. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  13. "Delivering social change with AI at IBM".
  14. "Intellectual Property The Hard Way, Part VI: Creating Value". Forbes .
  15. "Meet IBM Master Inventor Tom Zimmerman". YouTube .
  16. "IBM Master Inventor Floriana Filomena Ferrara". YouTube .[ dead YouTube link ]