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 there were so few women holding the top patent counsel posts at technology companies. Though indeed there were fewer women at these top posts at the time, there nevertheless were several women heading the IP departments in Silicon Valley. To raise the level of awareness of their counterparts’ leadership roles, Mallun and Julie reached out to these other women, namely, Anirma Gupta (Intuit Inc.), Noreen Krall (then of Sun Microsystems), Michelle Lee, Mona Sabet (Cadence), and Emily Ward (eBay). Together, the “idea” of ChIPs was soon “reduced to practice” and the organization as it exists today was formed.