'I have more than 57 granted US patents'

Last week, we started this column where patent holders write about their work, and what it requires to be innovative.

I believe patents hold great significance for technologists like me and represent valuable intellectual assets for companies operating in the current knowledge-based economy. They reflect the innovation capacity of creative engineers. In my case, as someone with 35 years of industry experience in enterprise product engineering and currently leading research engineering and academic research collaboration at VMware India, I am passionate about my patent portfolio, which consists of more than 57 patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). I also have more than 10 pending patent applications.

My journey of building my patent portfolio began in 2005 when I was working as a file system architect at EMC Corpora tion, US. Over the years, I honed my understanding of the patenting landscape, serving as a vital member of patent filter committees during my time at Veritas from the year 2000 to 2005 and later during my second stint at EMC between 2009 and 2011. These experiences not only taught me what, when, and how to patent, but also how patents can be leveraged as strategic tools to safeguard innovations and advance one’s professional career.

In my current role at VMware, where I’m responsible for translating applied research from the VMware Research group into practical products and services, patents play a pivotal role in assessing the impact and success of my work. I’ve been meticulous in protecting my innovations in diverse domains, ranging from distributed file systems and data services to cloud management, disaggregated memory systems, and intelligent systems. The fact that my patents are frequently cited (by other research papers) reinforces my belief that patents are instrumental in establishing thought leadership and showcasing technological expertise.

The invention of the unified file system for serving file and block access protocols ?Thin provisioning of a file system and an iSCSI LUN through a common mechanism’ is cited 160 times and it is one of the fundamental inventions of scalable file system infrastructure that is designed to serve a small number of large files for block device infrastructure support and a large number of small and medium size files for serving file access protocols. It also serves as a foundation for cloud-scale block storage systems.

The innovation on the self-healing file system is another widely cited patent (cited 83 times). It serves as a foundation for an always-available filesystem with online recovery to deliver on the committed SLA (service level agreement) on a system with storage devices having a spectrum of reliability characteristics. This is one of the critical elements of modern storage systems that attempt to balance cost, performance, and capacity. This is also used as a foundation to deal with wear-level nuances in NVMebased storage systems.

If you’re considering embarking on a patenting journey, here are a few things that you need to consider:

• Don’t prematurely dismiss the patentability of your idea; consult your patent office for an assessment.
• Avoid conducting your own prior art search (review of public sources to determine if an inven tion can be patented); your patent office will handle this as part of their evaluation.
• Start by identifying the key novelties in your implementation, and expanding to include design, models, deployment scenarios, and use cases.
• Patents can protect various innovations, from unique user experiences to custom OS extensions and business models.
• Integrate innovation disclosure applications into your development process to align with your organisation’s IP protection strategy.
• Define your innovation’s key novelties thoughtfully, balancing coverage and expenses.
• Collaborate with your patent office to ensure your application covers both current ideas and potential future iterations.
• Consider that overly futuristic concepts may not align with patent office priorities and budgets; focus on realistic innovations with monetisation or defence potential.

In conclusion, I would add that if you are keen to pursue this passion, it may benefit to be a part of an organisation for which innovation is central. I have been fortunate to be a part of an innovative ecosystem throughout my career.

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