Laurie Self Image

Laurie Self

Senior Vice President and Counsel, Government Affairs

Qualcomm Inc

Laurie Self is Senior Vice President and Counsel, Government Affairs at Qualcomm Incorporated, where she specializes in U.S. patent policy matters at the federal and state level. Based in Washington, D.C., Ms. Self also supports Qualcomm’s government affairs initiatives to promote strong intellectual property rights in emerging markets. Ms. Self’s particular focus is on ensuring that U.S. intellectual property laws and policies provide the necessary protections and incentives to support the company’s R&D-driven business model.

Recent Articles by Laurie Self

Women and patents: why we need to close the gender gap

We have known for decades that economies grow when the women in them work. The more that women find ways to contribute their ideas and inventions to the economy, at a rate that at least equals their numbers as half the American population, the better off our country and the world will be.

Misleading patent troll narrative driven by anecdote, not facts

”An anecdote is a snapshot, a one-dimensional shard of the big picture. It is lacking in scale, perspective, and data,” authors Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner write. I was struck by how well the dynamic of anecdote vs. story captures the heated Washington debate over patent legislation we have witnessed in the past few years. The ”patent troll” narrative — fueled by anecdotal tales of mom-and-pop operations snared by fraudulent patent suits and the image of ugly green trolls paraded from the House floor to the White House – became the conventional wisdom on patents almost overnight. The only ”data” offered to support the narrative were compiled from surveys with unscientific methodologies, nonrandomized survey bases and ill-defined notions of a ”troll” that swept in universities, small inventors and anyone who owned a patent but didn’t manufacture, market and distribute the related product.

Past Events with Laurie Self