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Raymond Millien

General Counsel & Corporate Secretary

Exro Technologies

Raymond Millien is the General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Exro Technologies.

Prior to joining Exro Technologies, Ray was the Chief Executive Officer of Harness IP, where he oversaw the firm’s operations, including HR, Finance, Marketing/Business Development, IT, and Docketing.

Previously, Ray also served as the Chief IP Officer at Volvo Car Corporation and CEO of Volvo Cars Ventures, where he led a global team of attorneys and managed a multi-million dollar legal budget. Under his watch, Volvo Cars significantly increased its IP licensing revenue and its patent application filing rates, while simultaneously controlling departmental operating expenses.

He has led the IP function at GE Oil & Gas and the American Express Company, and the software IP function at GE Healthcare. Ray has also served as General Counsel of merchant bank Ocean Tomo, LLC, and practiced law in the Washington, D.C. offices of DLA Piper US LLP and Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC.

He received a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University, and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. In addition to his career as an innovation and legal executive, Ray is a lecturer and published author with experience as a member of several boards of directors and in venture capital, licensing, software development, and corporate and technology law.

Ray has been named one of the “World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists” by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine and a “Corporate IP STAR” by Managing IP (MIP) Magazine.

Recent Articles by Raymond Millien

U.S., EPO and Chinese Software-Related Patent Grants Remained Steady in 2023

As an update to my previous posts from 2017, 2019, 2020, March 2021, August 2021, 2022, and 2023, it has now been almost a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision. Yet the debate still rages over when a software (or computer-implemented) claim is patentable versus being simply an abstract idea “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none” (as eloquently phrased 76 years ago by then-Supreme Court Justice Douglas in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.).

Software-Related U.S. Patent Grants in 2022 Remained Steady While Chinese Software Patents Rose 8%

As an update to my previous posts from 2017, 2019, 2020, March 2021, August 2021, and 2022, it has now been almost nine years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision. Yet the debate still rages over when a software (or computer-implemented) claim is patentable versus being simply an abstract idea “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none” (as eloquently phrased over 74 years ago by then-Supreme Court Justice Douglas in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.). Further, it has been 12 years since famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote the influential and often-quoted op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Software Is Eating the World.” Today, the digital transformation where software is “eating the world” is undeniable. Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Metaverse, Web3, cloud, gene editing, autonomous driving, quantum computing, and “green tech” dominate the technology news headlines and technology trend forecasts – all heavily reliant on software-related innovation – [Forbes] [Gartner] [World Economic Forum], but we are still without concrete guidelines for software-related patenting.

Past Events with Raymond Millien

Webinar: Raising the Profile of IP within Your Company

April 6, 2023 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EDT

IPWatchdog LIVE 2021

September 12-14, 2021

IPWatchdog Annual Meeting Now VIRTUAL CON2020

September 1, 2020 @ 12:00 pm - 3:30 pm EDT