ChIPs Network

ChIPs Welcomes Next Generation of Board Members

SAN FRANCISCO (February 19, 2020) — ChIPs, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing women in technology, law and policy, welcomed four new board directors last month.  Effective January 1, 2020, Katherine Minarik (General Counsel, Dyson-Americas), Sarita Venkat, (Head of IP Transactions, Apple Inc.), Cyndi Wheeler (Director, Intellectual Property, Slack) and Jennifer Yokoyama (Deputy General Counsel, […]

Are Your Friendships at Work Holding You Back? 

Last year, Mallun Yen, ChIPs Co-founder and CEO, explored the question of whether women’s friendships are holding them back in their careers and wrote about her findings in her Fortune.com article “How Friendship Holds Women Back in Their Careers–and What They Can Do About It“. Caroline Fairchild recently wrote an article for her “Working Together” […]

ChIPs Co-founder and CEO Mallun Yen’s Research Featured on Fortune.com

Mallun Yen, ChIPs Co-founder and CEO, explores this question and discusses her findings from a year of interviews. “Doing deals with your buddies is a time-honored way to build your book of business. But women tend to struggle when it comes to mixing money and friendship, cutting themselves off from one of the most effective […]

2015 Innovator Awards: Mallun Yen

When RPX Corp. brought together more than 40 technology companies last year to license 4,000 Rockstar patents for $900 million, Cisco Systems Inc. general counsel Mark Chandler hailed the defensive patent aggregator for organizing “a consortium of unprecedented scale.” How complex and innovative was the deal? Well, Chandler and RPX Executive Vice President Mallun Yen […]

The Rise of Stiletto Networks – Top 5 Women’s Power Circles

Based in: Silicon Valley Co-founders: Anirma Gupta, Deputy General Counsel, Intuit Noreen Krall, Chief Litigation Counsel, Apple Michelle Lee, Director of the Silicon Valley United States Patent and Trademark Office Julie Mar-Spinola, VP Legal, Alta Devices Mona Sabet, VP, Business Development, Cadence Design Systems Emily Ward, Deputy General Counsel, Technology and Patents, eBay Mallun Yen, Executive […]

Women’s work-Three steps closer to gender equality

The Recorder invited Mallun Yen, the executive vice president of RPX and the former head of global IP at Cisco, to deliver the keynote address at a Sept. 25 reception honoring The Recorder’s 50 Women Leaders in Tech Law. Below is a condensed version of her talk. Many of you know that I am a […]

Cisco’s Top Patent Lawyer in Rarified Air

Cisco Systems’ Mallun Yen

When Robert Barr decided to leave his post as Cisco Systems Inc.’s chief patent counsel, the company didn’t have to search for a successor. General Counsel Mark Chandler had just one candidate in mind: Mallun Yen. For the past three years, Yen has served as Cisco’s director of intellectual property.

“Mallun has three primary attributes that made her a very logical successor,” Chandler said. “She’s incredibly smart, tough as nails and a great team player.”

Yen, who recently returned from maternity leave, took the helm Monday as managing director of worldwide IP.

We are often asked about how we came up with the idea of ChIPs…

The idea of ChIPs was first “conceived” by co-founders Julie Mar-Spinola and Mallun Yen in 2005, when Mallun was promoted to the top patent counsel position at Cisco Systems. The Recorder wrote an article (Rarefied Air) about Mallun’s promotion and interviewed Julie (then of Atmel) and Michelle Lee (then of Google) to comment on why […]

She-roes: Women Strive to Promote Their Own in Silicon Valley IP Law

Never underestimate the power of visible trailblazers. They were sorely lacking when Anirma Gupta began as a patent attorney in 1993. “The firm I worked at had no intellectual property partners in the electrical/mechanical field,” says the deputy general counsel for litigation and IP at Intuit in Mountain View, Calif. “I had no female role models.” […]