Santa Clara University

Patent Pro

Kevin Rivette '82 is the author of the international bestseller, Rembrandts in the Attic 

Kevin Rivette, ’82, doesn’t take himself too seriously. Even after having published a best-selling book that has been translated into four languages, it took a bookstore clerk to convince him that he was an author. “I guess I am,” he finally conceded.

He refers to his career, in which he has essentially changed the way businesses value patents, as “stumbling around.”

That’s not the way others see it. Rivette is considered a visionary and a “guru” in the world of intellectual property asset management. His book, Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents, published by Harvard Business School Press, argues that patents need to be viewed as assets integral to a company’s business strategy, not just as rights that corporate legal departments need to protect.

Kevin Rivette '82

Rivette and co-author David Kline tell corporations how to “mine” their patents, including licensing patents they are not using to others, suing those who are infringing them, and reviewing competitors’ patent applications for valuable information on where they are heading technology-wise. (In the small world of high-tech engineering, the identity of an inventor reveals a lot about what the company is up to.)

Rivette grew up on the East Coast and attended the University of Kansas, majoring in business and chemistry. He chose Santa Clara Law on the advice of a professor who said that SCU was very much at the forefront of technology and was “where Intel is sending their engineers to understand the legal aspects of the business,” says Rivette.

During law school, Rivette clerked at the patent law office of Santa Clara Law lecturer Thomas Schatzel, who remembers him as a student who stood out. “He was always a very highly motivated person, intelligent and very ambitious. When he wanted to do something, he put out the effort and drive to accomplish it.”

In addition, Rivette had a valuable talent back in those days when screens kept bugs out and chips came salted and in a bag: “He could see down the road at the things coming,” says Schatzel.

Upon graduation in 1982, Rivette worked as an associate for Schatzel in patent litigation. It was about this time that Rivette predicted a huge change in the way IP was being used. “With the creation of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [to which all patent cases are appealed] and the changes in the law giving teeth to section 337 [the Tariff Act provision for IP disputes involving imported goods], it occurred to me that patent was going to be a big area,” he said.

Companies were already starting to send their labor off-shore to reduce costs. “If you have a race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator, for labor,” says Rivette, “all you have left is innovation and you have to protect it in a different way. I saw that, at the end of the day, IP was going to be the lingua franca of business.”

Rivette left the practice of law in 1986 and formed two technology start-ups while he formulated the ideas for Rembrandts in the Attic. Published in 1999, the book received great reviews (the New York Times calling it a textbook for IP), and became an international business bestseller.

In late 2002, Rivette accepted a position with Boston Consulting Group, and in 2005 joined IBM, where he is Vice President of IP Strategy. Rivette holds 40 of his own patents. In 2006 he was appointed to the Public Advisory Committee for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Despite a demanding job with offices on both coasts, Rivette finds time to return to his Santa Clara Law patent law class. With an easy manner and infectious laugh, Rivette is “one of our most sought-after speakers,” says Schatzel. “The students love him. It’s a combination of his depth of knowledge and his personality. He is down to earth and pragmatic. He tells students what’s going on in the real world.”

Rivette, who has a passion for history and cars (“the lower and faster the better”), lives in Palo Alto with his wife, Dorothy ’85, who has worked as an attorney for the Legal Aid Society and Legal Services, and their 18-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter.

By Susan Vogel