The Digitalization Of Patent Annuity Payments - Insights From A Pioneer

When I started my IP career at Dennemeyer in 1984, I sometimes felt like an alien. Back then, there were hardly any IT specialists in the IP industry. Looking back, I would even question if there was a global "IP industry" at all. The business, no matter if legal or administrative, was still almost completely in the hands of traditional law firms and outsourcing of IP services, such as patent annuity payments or Trademark Renewals, was an exception. Myself, a graduate computer scientist, was initially hired to perform IT-based trademark searches. But then, after a couple of weeks, technology surprisingly drove my switch to the annuity payments department.

What had happened? The founder of our group, John James Dennemeyer, was a pioneer in the field of combining software and IP payment services. Already back in the '70s, working as a patent attorney in Luxembourg, he had the idea to use computers to manage annuity payments for patents and trademarks. This was the actual start of computer-based patent annuity management. John Dennemeyer had already looked back on an interesting and unusual life: born in the US, grown up in Luxembourg, he studied in Munich. During WW2 he returned to the US, where he worked as an interpreter for the US army. After the war, he finished his studies and became a US lawyer/patent attorney. In 1962 he returned to Luxembourg, where he opened a Patent Attorney Office with the support of two major US corporations. As mentioned before, it was technology, or better, his innovative idea, which led him to the start of software-based patent annuity payments. This allowed his company to offer the use of software in managing the payment on issued patents for the portfolio of the Luxembourg Patent Attorney Office. The opening of the Stockport Office in 1973 was the beginning of a global success story. Steve Miller, Director UK, started April 1st, 1973, worked exactly 40 years for Dennemeyer.

Floppy disks through ages: Left: 8-inch floppy disk, usage 1971-late 1970s; Middle: 5¼-inch floppy disk, usage 1976-mid 1980s; Right: 3½-inch floppy disk, 1.44MB, usage 1983-early 2000

Back to myself: Shortly after I started with trademark searches at Dennemeyer, the colleagues from the payment department were wondering what that giant computer, which had just been delivered to the law firm, was actually good for and who ordered it. It was Paul Dennemeyer, the founder's son, a software analyst responsible for the development and management...

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