THOUGHTLEADER PROFILE
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David Wolf Boston patent lawyer David Wolf, 82, still regularly gets patents for his clients – including, sometimes, himself. He was just granted his 18th US patent – number 7,520,808 - for a unique lottery game that would pay huge jackpots. Know those plastic lids with dimples that come on practically every cup of take-out beverage? (The server presses in the dimple so you know whether it’s root beer or ginger ale, coffee with sugar or without inside). David patented that. He also patented a self-ventilating roller skate. “Once you’ve been bitten by the invention bug, you don’t want to stop,” he says. David is a shareholder in the Boston intellectual property law firm Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., which was founded by his father, Ezekiel in 1927, the same year he was born. Most people are retired at his age, but retirement—he jokes that he’d be a menace on a golf course—holds little appeal for him. David likes earning a living and enjoys mentoring young lawyers, but what really keeps him going is that he loves solving problems—whether it’s his own problem or a client’s. “I have a lot fun doing it,” he says. “It’s a personal challenge to help inventors develop their ideas.” If a client’s idea has potential but David knows that it’s flawed, he thinks about creative ways to fix it. But he wants the client to feel it’s his solution, not David’s. So he asks the client a lot of questions. “I give him a series of challenges and questions that direct him to alternate solutions” he says. That kind of collaboration between a lawyer and an inventor is unusual but fruitful. “We did a lot of work around the kitchen table at Dave’s house,” says client Saul Palder, inventor of Smart Spin, the hot-selling patented carousel system for storing food containers. Palder, who happens to be the same age as his lawyer, adds, “Dave Wolf has the compassion to listen to an inventor with an idea and not whack him with a big bill. He’s simpatico and really understands what you’re doing. ” David commutes to work every day with his son, Doug Wolf, a prominent trademark lawyer who’s also a shareholder at Wolf Greenfield. “He’s always thinking about solutions, constantly coming up with ideas,” Doug Wolf says. “It’s a practical solution to some problem at the home or office that you may not even recognize as a problem. He approaches legal work that way. If he has to tell a client ‘no,’ he always adds, ‘Have you ever thought of…’ He’s always thinking outside the box.” While the patent system has gotten more complex and expensive, it’s nevertheless far superior to what existed years ago, David asserts. “Intellectual property rights and the development of patent protection have become more important than ever before,” he says. “All you need to do is compare the value of IP assets today versus 50 years ago. Back then, the cliché was only ‘the good patent is one the Supreme Court has not seen.’ “Since then, we’ve had major changes in attitude, including the recognition that we needed a special court for patents, with the creation of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Companies recognize patents as a real source of potential income. IBM has something like $1.5 billion in royalty income.” It is now estimated that intellectual property royalties have increased in the U.S. from $15 billion in the year 1990 to about $500 billion in 2005. Patents, trademarks and copyrights have become valuable property, just like chattels and real estate. And with the export of many manufacturing jobs overseas, innovation is the main thing that the United States has to sell—and strong patent rights are crucial to protecting new ideas. David observes that the state of innovation is “reasonably healthy,” but he’s worried that high costs are hurting inventors. Particularly troubling are annual patent-maintenance fees that didn’t exist in the past. “You have to think twice before keeping a patent,” he says, and indeed David has abandoned a few of his old patents. “It reduces the compensation for invention and the incentive,” he says of the ongoing fees. “You don’t need to build a better mousetrap if you can just take someone else’s abandoned patent.” But then again, he’s never made money from his own patents. “I gave many of them to clients,” he says. For instance, he gave the drink lid patent to Sweetheart Plastics, a client at the time. But now he wouldn’t mind cashing in on his lottery patent. It has 10 numbers, and he says they could be arrayed like a baseball team with 9 players, plus the designated hitter. He also has three more ideas in the works: an improvement on the lottery game, a consumer product to ease the lines of catheters, and new kind of a hair clip. David’s resume at Wolf Greenfield is most impressive. His over 50 years experience in IP law includes extensive trial and appellate experience in patent, trademark, and copyright litigation, and appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts throughout the country. He is also expert in handling large patent and trademark portfolios and licensing for a variety of the area’s leading corporations. In addition, he’s been on the faculty of the ABA Trademark Trial Advocacy Program and the Massachusetts Bar Association Institute, has testified as an expert in many patent cases, and has served as an arbitrator in various intellectual property right disputes. “The Use of Trademarks for Resale of Refurbished Goods,” his article discussing the limits to exclusivity that a trademark owner may enjoy, was published in New England In-House Counsel in 2003 and he’s been a guest lecturer at Boston College Law School and Franklin Pierce Law School. While David doesn’t golf or take long vacations, he isn’t all work and no play. He’s a watercolor artist whose works have been exhibited in various shows. To view Wolf Greenfield’s thoughtleader achievements or to connect to its website, click here about emerson consulting group Ken Lizotte, Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO), 978-371-0442 Email Us |
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NOTE: This article by our own PR Czar Henry Stimpson originally appeared in Inventors Digest