NASA: Creating IP to Infinity and Beyond

• Author: Tammy Pennington Rhodes
• Pages: 58-61

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 12, Number 3, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

NASA

Creating IP to Innity and Beyond

By Tammy Pennington Rhodes

T

his year NASA, along with the entire country, celebrates the 50th anniversary

of the lunar landing and looks forward to the projected return to the moon. But, beyond

space, what hasn’t NASA explored? Innovations driven by NASA research touch every

aspect of our lives. From mattresses to heart surgery, the impact of NASA technology is

substantial. One of the individuals charged with patenting and licensing these ground-

breaking technologies for the last 52 years is NASA intellectual property (IP) counsel Ed Fein.

I had the pleasure of conversing with Ed recently about IP at NASA.

A Journey into Space IP

Ed is both one of the most approachable people one could ever

meet and also extraordinarily humble. So of course he started

our conversation with “No one wants to hear about me.”

But of course anyone who has ever met Ed wants to do

exactly that. I promised Ed to keep his story short, even

though it deserves a far more elaborate storyboard

and a far more eloquent storyteller. So with that,

let’s begin our journey into space IP.

Ed, a Longhorn through and through, went to the

University of Texas and earned a degree in mechani-

cal engineering. After graduation, he headed straight to

law school at his alma mater. Back then, Ed informed

me, not many schools outside Washington, D.C., taught

IP law. Ed took the only IP course available, a three-hour IP sur-

vey course. Ed reminisced, “I realized pretty quickly that I needed further education.” With this

desire to learn more about IP law, Ed set off for Washington, D.C., to work as a patent examiner

at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Ofce (USPTO). According to Ed, “Back then it was pretty

hard to get into IP without having USPTO experience.”

The USPTO at the time routinely had guest speakers as part of an IP law academy series. This

allowed the examining corps to learn more about patent law and patent practice from individuals who

worked with IP in a variety of elds. With obvious enthusiasm, Ed recalled, “The USTPO had a speaker

come from NASA, and I still remember his name, Garland T. McCoy; that’s how much of an impact he

made on me.” After the lecture, Ed went straight up to Mr. McCoy and told him, “You have my dream

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