Robert A. Hulse

Having decided by age 16 to become a patent attorney, Hulse wanted to be prepared.

After earning undergraduate degrees in engineering and economics, he topped that off with a master's degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College in 1997.

"I wanted to be versatile, because I didn't know where the technology would be," he said.

Hulse cut his teeth, and his reputation, as lead outside patent counsel for Facebook Inc., having secured its first-issued patent relating to its newsfeed feature.

He continues to manage the bulk of the company's international patent portfolio and also serves as lead outside counsel for Flipboard Inc., Chegg Inc., Marketo Inc., Livescribe Inc. and Delphix Corp., among others.

These days, Hulse has been active in promoting medical device and health care intellectual property.

"It's a growing field," he said. "There are a lot of new startup companies that are bringing wearable device technology to health care problems."

These are not traditional medical device or pharmaceutical companies, Hulse added, "but guys quitting Google and Facebook and starting companies for wearable devices."

The works suits him, Hulse said, adding, "Being a jack-of-all-trades, it's a natural fit to do medical device work."

With his know-how in economics, Hulse also is active in the realm of financial products - an increasingly challenging segment of the patent world.

"It's tricky to patent financial products," he added. "You used to be able to write a patent claim that covers the financial product itself, but with recent case law, you now have to put a machine or some kind of physical transformation into the claims."

- Pat Broderick