Microsoft Encourages Women and Minorities to Pursue IP Law – Profiles
Sade Fashokun
What first attracted Sade Fashokun to a job at Microsoft as a product specialist in 1996 was the desire to make a contribution to the company on the leading technical edge, as well as its wide range of products and breadth of opportunities. She perceived, correctly, that the company would provide a dynamic setting in which to simultaneously contribute, develop skills, and explore varied careers.
Several years later, Fashokun became interested in business development; specifically, she wanted to get involved with negotiating business deals. Eventually, she moved to Microsoft’s legal department as a patent analyst in 2004. “Finally, I’d found a track to reach my ultimate goal,” Fashokun reflects. “It allowed me to use the technical and business skills I’d gained at school and work, and to start learning something entirely new—the legal side of the company.”
Originally from Nigeria, Fashokun graduated from the University of Lagos with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She continued her education at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she earned an MBA. “Moving to the States wasn’t much of a culture shock for me,” she remembers. “I’d been here before on vacations, and my siblings and I grew up on Sesame Street and other popular U.S. TV shows.”
After a year as a patent analyst, Fashokun passed the patent bar exam and became a patent agent, allowing her to speak with Patent Office examiners on behalf of the company’s prospective inventors. Soon thereafter, Fashokun was accepted into Microsoft’s scholarship program and began law school. She graduated in 2008, and is currently employed at the company as a patent attorney.
“My transition from analyst to attorney was nearly seamless,” notes Fashokun. “I’d been working with attorneys for some time, and patent analysis remains part of the job. But as a lawyer, I’m now able to integrate my knowledge of the law and realize my ambitions by helping with completing licensing deals.”
Cindy Jones
Working full time at Microsoft as a patent agent while attending Seattle University School of Law leaves Cindy Jones very little time to herself. “I count my free moments in terms of minutes, and not hours, these days,” she relates with a good-natured sigh. Still, Jones doesn’t regret her decision one iota: “I’d reached the top of Microsoft’s patent-agent career ladder, and was definitely ready for a new challenge. I applied to the company’s law school scholarship program to become an IP attorney, and fortunately was accepted.”
Prior to joining Microsoft as a software developer in 1998, Jones’s tech experience included working at a dot-com, creating edutainment CD-ROM products, and building an expertise in web development specializing in large-scale, data-driven sites. Earlier, she had earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Mount Holyoke College.
So when Jones moved to the legal side at Microsoft in 2004, it was truly a step into unfamiliar terrain. “Microsoft went out on a limb when they hired people from within the company with no law experience, and then to send us to law school—well, it’s just one of the most awesome job-related career growth opportunities ever,” she shares. “While it’s a pretty radical approach, it makes perfect sense: It’s a lot easier to introduce software developers to the law than to teach lawyers about software engineering. Also, developers have gone through product release, and understand those deadlines and tensions in a very real way.”
Jones is excited about the prospect of finishing law school in December and then passing the bar. Not only is she very eager to get started on the next phase of her legal career at Microsoft, but the notion of the occasional work-free Saturday night strikes her as awfully good, too.
Crystal Gothard
Not all IP attorneys need to possess a technical background. Crystal Gothard, a trademark and copyright attorney in Caterpillar Inc.’s Peoria, Ill., headquarters, earned a degree in political science before entering law school (both at the University of Denver). Her IP interest was first piqued in a trademark class: “I instantly appreciated the idea of a practice area that involved different products and different industries while practicing the same type of law.”
At Caterpillar, Gothard handles core trademark issues domestically, as well as international jurisdictions including Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. She also conducts copyright matters for the company and its many subsidiaries. “More and more, corporations are recognizing the value of their trademarks and their entire IP portfolios,” notes Gothard. “For a multi-billion dollar company like Caterpillar, its name and good will attracts customers and sells their product—heavy machinery. It’s vital to protect the brand.”
Gothard respects trademarks and patents outside of the office as well. Among her friends, it is common knowledge that she will needle them if they are spotted carrying knockoff designer handbags, sunglasses, or other counterfeit products. “As a matter of principle, I refuse to buy them,” Gothard shares with good humor, “because I understand brand value.”
She continues, “During the dot-com boom, I was employed at both Patton Boggs and Greenberg Traurig, where I helped new companies to select business names, test trademarks, and initiate advertising. I know first-hand the difficulty involved in building a brand, and that means a lot to me.”
There is not a lot of racial diversity in IP law, notes Gothard, who was employed as VP and general counsel at MCCA for five years. However, she happily reports, women comprise a decent percentage in trademark law, and are increasingly better-represented in the more technically focused patent areas.
Mallun Yen
Coming of age in San Jose, the largest city in Silicon Valley, Mallun Yen understood the value of technology. Still, Yen—now vice president of worldwide IP and deputy general counsel at Cisco Systems, Inc.—never considered a tech-related career for herself. As an undergrad at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, she majored in finance; later, at U.C. Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, Yen foresaw a career in securities law. “It was after law school, while I was clerking for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte, a well-known IP judge,” she recounts, “that I was first really drawn to patent cases. They were by far the most interesting and challenging matters that I’d encountered in law.”
Following her clerkship, Yen was hired as an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges where her practice focused on patent litigation and technology transactions. She fondly remembers her time at the firm: Almost immediately after her arrival, she went to work on large and interesting patent cases. Later, when Yen joined Cisco as senior IP counsel in 2002, it was to work with then-chief patent counsel Robert Barr, who had been a mentor at Weil.
During her service as Cisco’s chief IP counsel over the last five years, the job continues to evolve, a dynamic that offers Yen opportunities to grow. In addition to keeping up with ever-changing technology like Flip Video and WebEx, Yen is responsible for leading an increasingly important legal team. “IP is becoming more important to Cisco, and the economy overall,” explains Yen. “And it’s my challenge and great pleasure to work with the business side to help evolve the role and view of IP within the company.”