3 ms·
Early in my career (late 90s) I worked at a big company that just loved getting patents, had a big patent wall and did plaque presentations, etc. I got swept up
by LVB 4y ago
Early in my career (late 90s) I worked at a big company that just loved getting patents, had a big patent wall and did plaque presentations, etc. I got swept up in this and patented some "novel" (:eyeroll:) uses of a device that a partner/supplier made. Yay... I got a plaque and a few bucks, but Big Corp was never going to commercialize these uses, that was clear. They just wanted to run up the patent count.
But the partner corp was just a startup, trying to break into some markets, and now had some of those opportunities encumbered by patents and rightfully viewed our partnership as not in good faith (we didn't tell them about the patent work). The engineers at the partner firm were fairly pissed off at me, since I knew them well on a personal level and my name was on those patents. And naturally Big Corp promptly forgot about that business, never doing anything with the "IP".
I've thought about chucking those patent plaques in a fire, but I keep them in a box as reminder of that little snippet of my career, which I'd otherwise probably block out.
- vlovich123 4y agoPretty sure it’s Qualcomm. Not familiar with any other companies that were so proud of their parents to build a wall to them
- mkeeter 4y agoIt's pretty common – I've seen a wall o' patents in at least two (non-Qualcomm) offices!
- cipherboy 4y agoIBM has done this as well.
- mangamadaiyan 4y agoPatent walls were (are?) a patent feature of many BigCorps. I've seen at least three, and none of them were QualComm.
- DavidPeiffer 4y agoThere are certainly others. Micron has a patent wall. For a period of time under CEO Steve Appleton, meetings with engineers were prohibited [Fridays or half of Friday?] because the engineers should be working on parents during that time. My understanding is their strong patent portfolio was a good part of why they are still around after the massive consolidation of DRAM manufacturers through the 80's and 90's.
- djbusby 4y agoBoth of your comments were victims of auto-uncorrect.
- DavidPeiffer 4y agoDarn they are - exact same slip up too! Unfortunately it's too late to edit now.
- podunkPDX 4y agoI know a life of typing has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame autocarrot.
- duxup 4y agoMcData did that when they existed.
- qwertywert_ 4y agoGot one, and we are much smaller than qcom.