Re: An IP gripe

On Sun, 22 Aug 1999, Steven D. Jamar <sjamar[_at_]law.howard.edu> said:
>
> But the lawyer who knows *business* and the business side of the
> equation will often get more of the more important aspects of the
> transaction right than will the more narrow tech lawyer

I would like to add a big, YES to this. As someone whose work mostly involves licensing contracts, I have found that working with lawyers who understand business in general is really helpful. We got a draft license one time that required royalties to be accounted for and paid ON the last day of the quarter. The lawyer who drafted this apparently hadn't thought about the fact that you can't know what the quarter's sales are until AFTER the last day of the quarter.

If you're going to advise businesses, you need to understand the basics of how a business works. I also agree that most of these controversies are settled -- as they should be. A business is far better off settling an agreement than taking the time and money of a lawsuit. One can't always settle, but I sure try.

> 20 years ago I heeded advice not to take patent and copyright because
> of the lack of a technical degree. I then spent years in practice
> learning them on my own -- especially copyright and trademark and
> trade secret. Patent I learned enough to know when to refer someone
> out to a specialist. The bad advice I received then is even worse now.

There were two patent lawyers at the career day that was one of the impetuses (impeti?) for my initial post and they said that a technical or science degree is REQUIRED to take the patent exam. Is that true?

Carol Cricow
<carol[_at_]yujean.com>

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives." Mark Twain Received on Mon Aug 23 1999 - 15:56:18 GMT