{"id":43451,"date":"2011-08-18T08:19:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T12:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=43451"},"modified":"2015-10-14T11:06:53","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T15:06:53","slug":"protecting-the-world-of-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/08\/protecting-the-world-of-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the World of Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Illustration<\/a>Thomas Edison knew something about ideas. The holder of more than 1,000 patents, he developed many of his ideas into inventions, bringing him to conclude that \u201cthe value of an idea lies in the using of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet once value translates into dollars and profit, things get complicated, particularly in the 21st century. One of the most prominent examples of this is still playing out in court\u2014the legal wrangling over who came up with the idea for Facebook, the popular social media website whose origins and subsequent legal case was the focus of the 2010 Oscar-winning film \u201cThe Social Network.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world of ideas\u2014including copyrights, licensing, patents, trademarks, and other \u201ccreations of the mind\u201d\u2014falls under the legal definition of intellectual property (IP), an area of law with roots in 18th-century copyright and patent law that has exploded as technology\u00a0 has advanced to include information, computer software, and other developments connected to electronic commerce and communications media.<\/p>\n

Protecting the value of ideas<\/h3>\n

Students attending the UConn School of Law have learned firsthand about the challenges of this area of law through the School\u2019s Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic. Located in East Hartford, Conn., the IP Law Clinic provides its students an extraordinary opportunity to undertake a wide range of intellectual property pro bono legal services, under the guidance of supervising attorneys, by assisting Connecticut-based entrepreneurs, inventors, and startup companies.<\/p>\n

Since its opening in January 2007, the IP Law Clinic has assisted more than 160 clients with intellectual property counseling, patent searches, patent applications, trademark clearance searches and registration applications, copyright and trade secret matters, drafts and negotiations of intellectual \u00a0property agreements, and Connecticut LLC formation. Assisting clients representing a variety of \u00a0industries, including agriculture, biotech and medical devices, computers and information technology, entertainment, consumer and food products\/services, engineering design and material sciences, the Clinic also is committed to expanding its work with clients in green and high-tech industries.<\/p>\n

In 2008, the IP Law Clinic was selected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as one of six law school clinics in the United States to be part of a two-year pilot program under which law students provide pro bono legal services, under the supervision of an attorney, before the Patent and Trademark Office. Last year, the program was expanded, renewing UConn\u2019s participation for an additional two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Clinic proved to be the most important facet of my law school education,\u201d says Hilary Sumner \u201909 JD, who chose the School of Law because of its IP program. \u201cI was given an invaluable opportunity \u00a0to work directly with small business owners, counseling them on a variety of issues. \u2026 I left with \u00a0a solid understanding of business organizations, transactional work and negotiation strategies. It was \u00a0this experience that gave me the confidence to open my own IP-focused firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IP Law Clinic is directed by Hillary Greene, associate professor of law, who previously served as project director for intellectual property in the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s Office of the General Counsel and as a litigation associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York City. Clinic classes are co-taught by Geoffrey Dellenbaugh, associate clinical professor and supervising attorney, who has \u00a0practiced patent and licensing law with Johnson & Johnson and the Warner Lambert Co. for more than three decades, and Lily Neff, assistant clinical professor and supervising attorney, who worked at IBM for two decades, first as a hardware\/software architecture engineer and then as a senior intellectual property attorney. Prior to joining UConn Law, the IP Law Clinic\u2019s program coordinator, Kathleen Lombardi, practiced law with Adams & Rafferty in Massachusetts for a half dozen years, focusing on matters including small business representation and licensing.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a>Keeping Connecticut competitive<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe IP Law Clinic embodies three of the finest traditions at UConn Law,\u201d says Greene. \u201cFirst, it strengthens and deepens the School\u2019s long-standing commitment to clinical education. Second, it \u00a0furthers our innovative approach to the study of intellectual property law. And, finally, it continues the School of Law\u2019s dedication to serving the people of Connecticut and contributing to the economic well-being of the state.\u201d Greene emphasizes that in addition to serving clients one-on-one, the clinical faculty regularly deliver presentations to innovator\/entrepreneur groups throughout the state and to important organizations with complementary missions, such as the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute and UConn\u2019s Center for Clean Energy Engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Connecticut is going to have a competitive economy long into the future, our country must continue building a robust intellectual property system,\u201d says Jeremy Paul, dean of the School of Law. \u201cThat is why we put so much effort into our Intellectual Property Program and why we are committed \u00a0to assisting Connecticut entrepreneurs and innovators by providing the important services offered by the IP Law Clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alumni with expertise in IP law help business growth<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Using their expertise in intellectual property and other areas of law, UConn School of Law graduates Michael Grillo \u201991 JD, Gerald DePardo \u201994 JD, and Mark Myers \u201908 JD together have had a hand in stimulating economic growth in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

With strong science and technical backgrounds in diverse fields\u2014Grillo in electrical engineering and physics, DePardo in electrical engineering, and Myers in biology and applied \u00a0mathematics\u2014their careers all eventually intersected about a decade ago with a single company.<\/p>\n

At CiDRA, a Wallingford-based company that designs and manufactures sensors used today in the mining, oilsands, and pulp and paper industries, Kevin Didden \u201981 (BUS)\u2014CiDRA\u2019s president and CEO, and a fellow UConn alum\u2014worked in various capacities with Grillo, DePardo, and Myers to secure intellectual property rights for a developing sensor technology used in measuring temperatures, pressures, sound, and flow in oil wells.<\/p>\n

As a result of their work, Weatherford Industries, one of the largest oilfield service companies in the world, in 2001 bought\u2014for $130 million\u2014the prototypes, intellectual property, and know-how necessary to build the sensor technology. Grillo, DePardo, and Myers were integral in the deal, with Grillo serving as general counsel, DePardo helping potential acquirers understand CiDRA\u2019s intellectual property portfolio and crafting the sale of that portfolio, and Myers taking the lead on demonstrating how the technology worked in the field. \u201cWhen we sold the division, revenues were quite low,\u201d recalls Grillo. \u201cThe value was in the intellectual property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, CiDRA\u2019s primary product\u2014a technology that Grillo, Depardo, and Myers were instrumental in bringing to the marketplace\u2014is used by leading companies in the mining, oilsands, and pulp and paper industries. With the help of the law school alums, the company retained the rights to apply its sensor technology in other areas, including telecommunications and biotechnology.<\/p>\n

Nearly a decade later, Grillo, DePardo, and Myers are enjoying separate careers in which intellectual property continues to play a significant role in generating wealth for Connecticut businesses. Today, DePardo serves as vice president, intellectual property counsel at The Travelers Co. Inc.; Myers heads up his own Storrs-based technical and business consulting firm, Point Break Associates LLC; and Grillo remains at CiDRA, where he is executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Intellectual Property Law Clinic offers first-hand experience in a burgeoning field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":44471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,1862,1857],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[73],"class_list":["post-43451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-busn","category-law"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 15:08:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43451"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105182,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43451\/revisions\/105182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/44471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43451"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=43451"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}