In his new book about the invention of the technology that now underpins our daily lives—semiconductors, computer hardware and software, the Internet—Walter Isaacson mentions only one lawyer, John Ralls, who drafted Fairchild Semiconductor’s first patent application for an integrated circuit, which trumped Texas Instrument’s competing bid after a decade of litigation over who invented the chip. He approvingly quotes famed venture capitalist Arthur Rock’s dismissal of the profession as having “screwed up” venture investing by overcomplicating it on page 188 of “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.”
And that’s about it for lawyers’ roles in the realm of innovation, according to Isaacson. That’s an oversight, and a missed opportunity.
