REPORTS TO         

President & CEO

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

Internal: Licensing Teams; Business Development; Patent Counsel; Legal Counsel; Finance; Program Development; President & CEO.

External: Licensees, Patent Owners, External Technical Consultants; Prosecution Counsel; Litigation Counsel.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Senior Vice President, Licensing manages and oversees one of the licensing teams of WiLAN’s technology portfolios. This is a hands-on, multifaceted role spanning patent acquisition, licensing, and litigation, as well as budgeting, forecasting, and the management of internal and external technical and legal professionals. 

The role also includes supporting patent prosecution, patent portfolio analysis, mining for new assertion opportunities, evaluation of patent acquisition opportunities, and negotiation of patent acquisition and licensing agreements, and related intake activities. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Drive licensing revenue through considered assertions
• Manage the patent prosecution and acquisition teams with determinations of patentability and use in the industry
• Oversee and identify patent portfolio acquisitions, including searching, due diligence and recommending patents and portfolios to acquire
• Manage prosecution and continuation practice in support of litigation and licensing programs for business unit’s projects
• Manage all technical support for licensing, business development and litigation for business unit’s projects

• Manage technical team in the analysis of patents for infringement and create claim charts

• Manage patent acquisition and licensing negotiations by providing advice in response to substantive patent questions such as claim construction, infringement, and validity
• Analyze patents in WiLAN’s portfolio for potential applicability to products and/or standards
• Manage budgets and resources
• Find and retain external counsel and experts to support the business

WiLAN is committed to treating all people in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence. We believe in integration and equal opportunity. Accommodations are available upon request for all applicants with a disability throughout the recruitment process. Please contact Human Resources hr@wilan.com if you require accommodation. We will work with all applicants to accommodate their individual accessibility needs.

We use automated tools, including artificial intelligence, to support aspects of our candidate screening process. All hiring decisions are made by humans, and we are committed to fair, equitable, and compliant hiring practices.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science
• Strong knowledge of US & international patent law
• Extensive experience licensing and litigating patents around the world gained either in private practice or in-house
• Strong track record of closing licenses
• Ability to manage internal and external engineers and counsel
• Strong presentation skills and ability to develop presentation materials/reports by using standard MS Office tools
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills
• Solid negotiation and contract drafting skills
• Outstanding research and organizational skills
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills
• Innovative problem-solving skills combined with a thorough analytical approach
• Excellent team player, able to prioritize and multi-task on multiple high-priority projects, and deliver results to schedule

About Wi-LAN Inc.

WiLAN develops and licenses innovative technology, working with key partners to monetize intellectual property through multiple models. Innovation is the principal element that drives economic progress. Without innovation, technology creation and development stagnate, leading to a decrease in productivity growth. History has demonstrated that those that focus on fostering, driving and protecting innovation, create tremendous long-term economic growth and shareholder value. Such innovation-driven economic growth cycles can be traced all the way back from ancient history to today’s rapidly evolving technological advances. Empires, nations, companies have all seen the benefits of this cycle; our collective future success and security depends on continuing innovation. However, innovation requires incentive. Without ownership and protection, solutions can still be found, but typically tend to be incremental or inconsequential. The reason for this is simple: when creative ideas are freely copied without consequence and innovators are not rewarded for their creativity, the risk/reward for development tips to imitation or incremental improvement. Innovative ideas can come... from very small groups and, without protection, such innovation becomes economically prohibitive to all but the largest corporations. Such large entities tend to become complacent when they only have one or two major other large competitors to worry about and as a result, technology advances more slowly and eventually begins to stagnate. Therefore, it is critical to protect innovative technology by creating patents that describe and claim the innovative concepts. Once innovators understand they can own the technology they created and receive an attractive economic incentive for its creation, they are much more willing to continue and even increase their development efforts. This, in turn, attracts third-party investment into such technology and the result is the beginning of strong economic growth. WiLAN has been an innovation-focused company since its founding in the early 1990s and continues to contribute with the development and licensing of new technology solutions to this day. In addition, WiLAN partners with companies of all sizes from around the world to provide its licensing expertise and create real monetary value for their intellectual property.

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