COLLOQUIUM
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of South Carolina

Why Does Every Tech Company Care about Patents? (Or, Why Does My Manager Keep Bugging Me about Patents?)

Stephen Shaw 

Date: Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Time: 5:45-6:45pm
Place: Swearingen 2A31 

Abstract
Virtually every technology company has a patent portfolio. Whether they’re in the news for suing another company for patent infringement, being sued themselves (often by “patent trolls”), or selling their patent portfolio for billions of dollars, patents and technology are inextricably linked. Why is this the case, and what is a patent, anyway? If patents are so important to these companies, what should I know about patents prior to getting a job in computers? Does my CS or EE degree qualify me to get a job in the patent field? Come find out the answers to these questions, and ask your own.

Stephen Shaw is 2003 graduate of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He also received his law degree from USC in 1997. He currently resides in San Francisco where he works for a large law firm on patents in the software industry.
This talk is sponsored by the Software Engineering special interest group of the Student ACM Chapter in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.