Former Cisco Intellectual Property Executive Joins RPX

Mallun Yen, former Cisco Systems Inc. Vice President, Worldwide Intellectual Property has joined RPX Corp., the leading provider of patent risk solutions.  Yen will serve as Executive Vice President, responsible for overseeing the development of new services and products for RPX’s client network.  She will be based in the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

Yen, 40, joins RPX following an eight-year career at Cisco where she rose quickly, and was ultimately responsible for developing and implementing its strategy to protect, enhance, defend, and capture the value of its intellectual property.  She and her team are credited with transforming Cisco’s IP approach from being primarily defensive to one that is closely aligned with business objectives and that drives competitive differentiation.  As part of that effort, Yen created and led the company-wide Intellectual Property and Standards Working Group, collaborating closely with business and technology leaders across Cisco.

“Mallun has had an extraordinary career at Cisco, building a strong team and developing a strategy that has marked our transformation into a global IP leader,” said Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Cisco.  “She has made tremendous contributions to Cisco, and we look forward to the work she will be doing at RPX to bring balance and rationality to the patent marketplace for the benefit of operating companies.”

“Mallun is clearly one of the most enterprising and progressive thinkers in the IP arena,” said John Amster, CEO of RPX.  “The RPX team has known Mallun since our founding through our work with Cisco.  Her market knowledge is invaluable to RPX and will accelerate our delivery of innovative services to our clients.”

When Yen joined Cisco in 2002, she was the networking giant’s second IP attorney and built an internal team of more than two-dozen senior industry professionals.  Her last role at Cisco encompassed global oversight of patent, copyright and trademark strategy, development, policy, prosecution, dispute management, licensing, patent pools and IP acquisition, as well as standards policy.

“RPX, from inception, has advanced a distinct and powerful vision to help companies proactively manage patent risk by creating a rational alternative to traditional litigation.  I am pleased now to help grow it to the next phase,” said Yen, who is viewed as a leader in effecting change to create a more balanced yet robust patent system.  “Joining RPX allows me the opportunity to leverage the experience I gained managing the IP strategy of a Fortune-100 leader, and to collaborate more broadly with operating companies on initiatives that will continue to improve efficiencies and further create transparency in the patent marketplace.”

RPX combines its ability to deploy principal capital with subscription fees from its client network to acquire potentially dangerous patents, removing them from the market before they can be used offensively.  Clients pay annual fees ranging from $40,000 to $5.2 million depending on company size, and automatically receive rights to the entire RPX patent portfolio.

To date, RPX has invested over $240 million to acquire more than 1,500 patents and patent rights across six major market sectors: consumer electronics and PCs, e-commerce and software, media content and distribution, mobile communications and devices, networking, and semiconductors.  RPX promises it will never assert patents or patent rights in its portfolio.

In addition to her responsibilities at RPX, Yen will continue her chairmanship of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology advisory board at the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California Berkeley.  She was awarded UC Berkeley Law’s prestigious Young Alumni Award in 2008 and UC Berkeley Foundation’s Young Bear Award in 2009 in recognition of outstanding achievement.  Yen also is a founding board member of ChIPs, an organization formed by women Chief IP Counsels, devoted to the advancement, mentoring and retention of women in the IP field.

After graduating from UC Berkeley Law, Yen clerked for one of the nation’s most respected leaders in patent jurisprudence, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose, and then joined the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, focusing on patent litigation and technology transactions.  Her first in-house job was as Chief Counsel with a networking industry start-up.

She received her BS from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.