Corporate Patent Lawyer Marries Scientific Process To Profits

Patent counsels and scientists work together to further understanding of science and increase corporate financial gain WASHINGTON - Corporate patent lawyers just don't see science the way researchers do. "Scientists spend their entire careers creating intellectual property," says Auzville Jackson, Jr., a partner in the Washington firm of Staas and Halsey, which specializes in intellectual property law. "Yet they never think about property values and how to protect their property, which is ofte

Written byDiana Morgan
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Patent counsels and scientists work together to further understanding of science and increase corporate financial gain
WASHINGTON - Corporate patent lawyers just don't see science the way researchers do. "Scientists spend their entire careers creating intellectual property," says Auzville Jackson, Jr., a partner in the Washington firm of Staas and Halsey, which specializes in intellectual property law. "Yet they never think about property values and how to protect their property, which is often worth a huge amount of money."

It is those property values that patent counsels think about most. And it is their job to try to get scientists to think about them too. William Duffey, general patent consul to Monsanto Co., expects the 34 lawyers working under him at the St. Louis agrichemical and pharmaceuticals firm to devote themselves to hectoring the company biochemists and engineers in this regard. It is a process that he believes leads the ...

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