Lawyers deal in secrets. Our clients trust us with information that is not and in many cases should never be publicly available. Keeping these secrets must be our number one priority.
As patent lawyers, the secrets we deal with, intellectual property, are often very valuable, and in some cases, encompass the entire value of the company. Fortunes are made and lost by these secrets. In the U.S., like many countries, inventions submitted for patents are reviewed for security issues, and a foreign filing license must be granted before any patent can be filed internationally. Any threat to your clients intellectual property must be taken seriously.
“Industrial espionage, and more specifically, insider threats, may be a more imminent threat to patent lawyers who use off-shore patent search companies than, for example, phishing. ”
These threats must be considered when deciding whether to use, for example, off-shore patent search companies or patent drafting or illustration vendors. Off-shore patent search companies feature all the components for industrial espionage: smart but disgruntled employees, high turnover, and unfettered access to confidential information. In fact, industrial espionage, and more specifically, insider threats, may be a more imminent threat to patent lawyers who use off-shore patent search companies than, for example, phishing.
Industrial espionage is the theft of intellectual property and the use of this intellectual property by a competitor to achieve a competitive advantage. A prominent form of industrial espionage is insider threats. Insider threats involve an insider, someone who works for the company, that gains access to the secret information and misuses it.
75% of industrial espionage targets the manufacturing industry, including pharmaceuticals, biotech, electronics, materials, and chemicals. The total average cost of insider threats to North American companies is about $13.3 million per year.
Shopify, Amazon, Stradis Healthcare, Twitter, and Tesla were all victims of insider threats last year. The nefarious insiders ranged from members of the support staff (Shopify), management and executive teams (Amazon and Stradis), and hackers who stole employees credentials (Twitter). In Tesla’s case, a heroic Tesla employee refused a $1 million bride to install malware on company servers and cooperated with the FBI to bring down the briber.
Lawyers and staff at law firms are thoroughly vetted and undergo substantial background checks before starting work. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that someone inside the firm would intentionally cause an insider threat.
Off-shore third parties, on the other hand, hold their employees to a much lower standard, and in my experience, are not very forthcoming with information about the people doing the actual search. Moreover, cyber crime and industrial espionage are on the rise in India, which is home to many active patent search companies. Taken together, there is a substantial risk associated with outsourcing patent search that must be considered before sending your search overseas.
DorothyAI’s AI-driven patent search platform alleviates the risk of insider threats by ensuring that your client’s secrets remain under the control of the firm. Contact us for more information.