20 years and counting: a legacy of success

What first interested you about IP?

After finishing my engineering degree and spending time in the automotive industry, I wanted to get a broader perspective on the world. The breadth of law seemed like an excellent complement to the specialty of engineering so I went to law school. When I graduated, IP was a perfect way to bring together my engineering and legal studies.

What motivated you to start your own business and how did you meet your business partner?

After working for several years at large IP firms, I felt there was a need to modernise the way IP is practised. There were tremendous opportunities for automation nearly everywhere I looked. I also advised and spent time in-house at various tech startups, where I caught the entrepreneurial bug. At a certain point I thought “Hey, there really is a way to modernise IP practice and be an entrepreneur too.” I joined my partner Steve Perry a year after he started the firm, and it was a perfect fit. We both saw the same opportunity and have very complementary skillsets in running a business.

What is your main focus for the business?

Steve and I both had strong patent and trademark preparation and prosecution practices, with a focus on software, electronics, telecommunications, mechanical devices, financial services and medical devices. Dolly [Kao, head of the firm’s trademark department] had a strong biotechnology patent and trademark practice. Not surprisingly, the firm’s practice has now grown to cover all areas of patent and trademark prosecution and litigation, even though the firm remains well known for its strength in outgoing patent and trademark preparation and prosecution.

How long have you been using Patricia®?

Since June 2006, when we started the firm. You might even call Patricia® a silent founding partner!

When did you realise that you may require specialised IP software instead of perhaps relying upon spreadsheets or similar methods of data storage (as many start-up firms do)?

Steve and I realised this need in our previous practices, and indeed one of our motivations here was to anchor the firm around technology. Excel spreadsheets break quickly—in my experience at about 50 cases they become unwieldy, ineffective and even dangerous. We had both seen in previous firms that a failure to embrace specialised IP software was at best going to impair growth and quality, and at worst could lead to a missed deadline.

When and how did you first hear about Patrix and Patricia®?

Prior to founding the firm, research was done to locate all of the commercial packages available. In that search Patricia® was picked from a variety of options.

What concerns did you have about procuring and implementing a system?

Programmability and the ability to support a paperless practice were key. Patricia® has fulfilled both needs very well.

What led you to the realisation that the investment in Patricia® and Patrix services would be prudent?

In our view the broader legal marketplace is still struggling to grasp just how powerful and seismic a change technology and automation can be. We believe that law in general, and IP specifically, is in the middle of the same kind of transformation that the automotive industry went through in the 1920s with the introduction of the assembly line, or the kind of transformation financial services went through starting in the early 1990s as electronic exchange platforms began to replace the traditional trading floor. Most firms are now grasping the need for automation, but in our view many still struggle with its implementation, despite paying lip service to it.

We are perhaps lucky that the founding partners both have electrical engineering backgrounds; we are in a sense ‘hard wired’ to appreciate how technology can benefit an IP practice. In many other environments I expect a cultural change at the top of the organisation is still required.

How did you find the implementation process and the level of assistance and input from Patrix?

Very solid. The firm initially worked with Patricia® ‘out of the box’ and implementation was smooth. Of course there were occasional hiccups but over time we have implemented our own unique configurations and Patrix has been helpful every step. Like so much in life, patience and perseverance are key.

Did you find the configuration flexibility allowed you to instill your best practice and procedures from the outset?

Absolutely. We believe the configuration flexibility is key. Historically, a firm would generate printed manuals or rely on ad hoc individual training to set policies and best practices. With Patricia®, we are able to embed policies and best practices directly into each user’s computing environment. Changing a policy or procedure now simply involves editing with the Patricia® configuration tool, rather than rewriting manuals, printing them and holding training sessions to enforce them.

Has your business success been assisted by your use of Patricia® and Patrix services?

Most definitely. There are several examples, but perhaps most salient is that we have been able to adapt rapidly to clients who on insist on certain practices: we simply program their practice requirements directly into Patricia®. This means again that users can have automatic instructions on their desktops that advise how to meet a particular client’s service standards. As a result of our ability to respond so quickly, we have seen clients consolidate work with our firm from other firms that have been unable to respond so quickly.

Have you found your use of Patricia® to be easily scalable with the growth of your business?

Yes. The firm started off with five people and after seven years has nearly 40 people. Patricia® will enable us to continue this kind of growth rate.

Do you think you may have required more staff to accommodate your growth in terms of turnover if you did not have Patricia® in place?

Yes. While such a thing is difficult to prove, there are frequent discussions at management level that Patricia® is enabling us to grow our practice with fewer staff than would have been required without Patricia®. As one example, we have no file clerks because we have no physical files.

Do you feel that you have received an adequate return on your investment and has Patricia® perhaps assisted with bottom line profits?

Yes. In fact the track record of success is such that the firm continues to invest further in configuring Patricia®, now employing four people whose only job is firm automation. Make no mistake, the investment is significant and should be, but the rewards far outweigh the investment and the returns are better than if we were running the old-fashioned way.

Did you find Patricia® logical and intuitive, hence easy to learn?

Yes. In my experience, the main barriers that can happen with learning Patricia® largely come from the fact that it literally rewrites the way IP law is practised. To address this fact, before we begin training our employees on Patricia® we give them basic background in project management philosophy, such as a basic background in Gantt bar charts. Once people understand that philosophy and open their mind to another way of thinking about managing legal services, it becomes quite easy to explain Patricia®.

We are also excited each time the Patrix team brings out enhancements to the user interface, as each release streamlines training and usability.

Which aspects of the product do you find the most beneficial?

We use nearly all of Patricia®’s features, so the ‘most beneficial’ aspects have changed over time as we continue to make use of Patricia®’s many features. At the beginning it was the document management system which allowed us to have paperless files from the day the firm was founded. Shortly after, we uniquely configured the workflow engine to our firm, which drastically improved our time management and quality. Next came the letter generation tool and batching. Currently our firm is working on rolling out the financial engine in Patricia® and we are very, very excited about what this will do for firm productivity. The net effect of all of these features is fantastic.

Are you satisfied with Patrix Support and other services provided?

The Patricia® support team is extremely responsive. Within 24 hours we have preliminary feedback and most issues are resolved quickly or are faithfully flagged for future releases. It’s also easy to reach the chief technology officer in the event we are having any complex issues that the day-to-day support team cannot handle.

Do you feel you have built a trusted relationship with Patrix and its staff both on a professional and personal level?

Yes most certainly. We have personal relationships with many people at Patrix and it is great to know there are many ways to engage.

Would you swap Patricia® and Patrix for any other product/supplier you know of?

It’s very difficult to conceive switching away from Patrix. The Patrix team also continues to invest in enhancements to Patricia® and with that kind of partnership there is no need to look elsewhere. n

Andrew Currier is a co-founding partner at Perry+Currier Inc. He can be contacted at:
currier@pckip.com