Robert Hulse

Hulse has played a key role in helping Facebook Inc. evolve into an online behemoth, and he continues to spend the majority of his time managing the bulk of the social media company's portfolio.

"I inherited a small set of cases in 2007 and took over the management of their patent portfolio from there," Hulse said. "I have since written and prosecuted patents for what has become some of the most fundamental inventions in social media."

Among those have been the platform's newsfeed, the user profile timeline and photo and media tagging, along with the ubiquitous "like" button.

Most recently, Hulse assisted Facebook in its $550 million acquisition of the AOL patent portfolio from Microsoft.

He also spends a significant amount of time helping startups, including such California-based online clients as Flipboard, Livescribe, Chegg, RockMelt and Marketo Inc.

"I try to get in on the ground floor and function almost as an in-house counsel and really use their products," Hulse said. "I try to understand the business and the marketplace better."

This means working with his clients in determining what patents they should write.

"It's not just from a technical standpoint," Hulse said, "but what would be useful from a business standpoint."

While other attorneys might approach patents from a technical perspective, Hulse said, "I take a step back. This is a business investment. You're not getting a patent as a reward because you thought of something cool."

Rather, he added, it's about determining what particular features are valuable to a company that would justify excluding others from doing the same thing.

In another significant matter, Hulse successfully appealed a rejected patent application to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of Apple Inc. In re: Staats, 2010-1443 (Fed. Cir., March 5, 2012).

Had the ruling stood, he said, it would have killed many patents across the country and prevented others from being issued.

Hulse said that he's handling about 1,800 patent applications at the moment, and last year he filed about 300 patents.

"It's really difficult to have to switch gears and coming up to speed," he said. "I'm dealing with clients and inventors and then the patent office, back and forth. At any time of day, I can get a call from a patent examiner on any given matter."

- PAT BRODERICK