Intellectual Property — A University Perspective

In 2016, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) reached a patent settlement with Marvell Corporation for a patent on reliably reading data from high density magnetic disks in computer disk drives, which was the 1998 PhD thesis of the speaker. It was the third largest patent verdict, and ultimately the third largest patent settlement in history (the first two were in medicine/pharmaceuticals), and the largest patent settlement ever achieved by a university. In this talk, we will follow the trajectory of the intellectual property associated with this patent, starting from the mathematical problem formulation, going through the engineering solution, and ending with the intricacies of legal protection. In the 1980s, magnetic memories found applications in personal computers on a massive scale, which spurred a race to miniaturize. The acute problem at that time was not how to write data, but rather how to reliably read densely written data. The CMU invention solved the problem and found itself being used in practically all disk drives manufactured since 2003, becoming the de-facto industry standard. As we expose the intricacies of the case, we will extrapolate trends associated with intellectual property as they relate to universities. Over the past 3 decades, the research landscape in electrical engineering, specifically in the areas of computers, signal processing and communications, changed dramatically. In the 1980s, the big four (IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard) had research labs that were the envy of many universities and government institutes. These labs no longer carry the same weight today, at least not in the fields of communications and signal processing. Chip makers in the areas of communications and signal processing became smaller, nimbler, and no longer have elaborate research labs. Today chip makers rely much more on the open literature, often on research results generated at universities, to achieve cutting edge performances of their products. In this talk, we study these trends as they relate to universities. While it is not clear how universities will fare in defending their intellectual property rights in the future, it is important for universities to understand the trends and adapt accordingly.