Mark J. Itri

Itri spends his days advising clients - Google Inc., Broadcom Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. among them -on their patent portfolios.

But last year, he also filed his own patent for a software budget tracking system.

"This came out of necessity," said Itri, who heads his firm's IP prosecution, transactions and strategy practice group. "Every month, I was scratching my head. 'This guy or gal just blew the budget.' I needed to understand where we were in a budget before I got the shock of a bill at the end of the month."

Itri developed the system with his IT department.

"We can notify the client where they are within the budget phase of a task in litigation," he said. "It applies equally to anything we do as a legal service."

Ten years ago, Itri came up with a system to mange work flow.

"It's one way of using technology to change how things happen in a law firm," he added. "You have to start thinking like a businessman. People's aren't going to pay your fees, because you are who you are. That's the way things are today and you have to be able to address those issues outside the traditional way."

Meanwhile, Itri continues to grapple with bottom-line oriented businesses that are always trying to reduce their legal spending.

"Companies want to pay less for their patent work and send work to lower-costing firms," he said.

But this can lead to poorly written patents, Itri added.

"A lot like to roll the dice and say, 'Hopefully, we have patents that cover what we need to cover,'" he said. "I think that's shortsighted. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for."

- Pat Broderick