DESIGN OPS › INNOVATION LEADERSHIP
Changing who gets to be called an inventor
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At IBM, patents were driven by engineers. I saw that as a gap, and a responsibility. So I changed it.
Role
Inventor · Mentor · Advocate
Scope
Personal patents + cross-disciplinary mentorship
Outcomes
First designer patented at IBM Poughkeepsie in 13+ years
CONTEXT
The narrative that needed changing
IBM has a deep culture of invention. Patents aren't peripheral, they're a signal of who contributes to the company's intellectual future. And for most of that history, that signal pointed almost exclusively at engineers.
I believed that was wrong, not as a matter of fairness in the abstract, but because it was factually incomplete. The experiences we design shape behavior, remove friction, and can meaningfully change how people live and work. That level of impact is patent-worthy. It just hadn't been claimed that way.
So I pursued it. Not quietly, I pursued it visibly, because the point wasn't just to get a patent. The point was to put design on the inventor board and make it harder to argue that designers didn't belong there.
9
patents awarded, spanning UX, privacy, and hardware interaction
10+
Designers mentored through the patent filing process
1st
Designer to be awarded a patent at IBM Poughkeepsie in over a decade
THE WORK
Three things, not one
Getting a patent was one part. The more meaningful work was making sure I wasn't the last designer to do it.
FILED & AWARDED
A short list
Automatic management of digital content access
US11206270
View patent ↗
Display device with camera embedded beneath screen
US11095762
View patent ↗
Vehicle setting adjustment
US20210016731A1
View patent ↗
REFLECTION
What it shifted
THE CENTRAL SHIFT
Getting a patent changes what's possible for the people who come after you, but only if you make the path visible. The credential mattered less to me than the precedent. Once one designer was on the inventor board, the argument that designers didn't belong there became harder to make.
THE THREAD
This sits alongside the Make Lab and the Internal UX Guild for the same reason: all three are about expanding what designers get to do and how seriously design is taken in a given organization. The medium was different each time. The instinct was the same.
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