Preface

• Author: Donald S. Rimai
• Profession: Recently retired from Eastman Kodak where he worked as a researcher and intellectual property manager in digital printing and adhesion science
• Pages: 9-10

Preface

Several years before retiring from my 33-year career at Eastman Kodak

as a researcher in the area of electrophotography, I was asked to assume

the responsibilities of an intellectual property manager for digital printing.

My responsibilities included devising patent strategies that would protect

Kodak’s technology, participating in asserting Kodak’s patents, improving

the quality of our patent portfolio, and producing and prosecuting patent

applications.

In this role, I was fortunate to work with a world-class group of sci-

entists, engineers, and technicians, coming from a wide variety of disci-

plines. e disciplines included physics, chemistry, mechanical, electrical,

and computer engineering, mathematical modeling, and imaging science.

Educational levels typically ranged from technical sta with associate

degrees, to professionals with BS, MS, and PhDs. Most had many years of

experience and routinely advanced electrophotographic and ink jet tech-

nology by solving almost intractable problems on a routine basis.

e technology advanced by Kodak’s technical team members was

highly innovative and allowed electrophotography to go from being lim-

ited to oce copiers to its rivaling both silver halide photography and o-

set printing in quality, reliability, and speed, while being able to integrate

the capabilities of the digital era with hard-copy printing.

Yet, despite the high level of skills of these individuals that routinely

led to great innovations, these inventors oen failed to recognize that they

had inventions. Yes, invention disclosures were submitted by the members

of the technical sta and patent applications were led and prosecuted by

the attorneys. Kodak was highly successful in both the quantity of appli-

cations led each year and the number of patents received. Nonetheless,

many of the inventors failed to precisely dene their inventions and, in

fact, very oen did not recognize that they even had inventions. is was

because the legal concepts of an invention oen dier from the perception

held by many members of the technical community of what constitutes

inventions. Obviously, prioritizing inventions and patent applications into

a coherent patent strategy was unlikely to occur. Adding to these compli-

cations was the fact that electrophotographic technology was a very mature

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