The man who shepherded sliding zipper bags into refrigerators, holograms onto credit cards and presorted mailing labels onto magazines while safeguarding countless other inventions will be honored with a new scholarship at the law school.
The partners of Woodcock Washburn, LLP have created the Robert B. Washburn Intellectual Property Law Scholarship to honor a founding partner of the national Philadelphia-based firm.
The man who shepherded sliding zipper bags into refrigerators, holograms onto credit cards and presorted mailing labels onto magazines while safeguarding countless other inventions will be honored with a new scholarship at the law school.
The partners of Woodcock Washburn, LLP have created the Robert B. Washburn Intellectual Property Law Scholarship to honor a founding partner of the national Philadelphia-based firm.
Each year, the scholarship will support a promising student in the school's
Intellectual Property Law program.
The scholarship is a fitting tribute to an attorney who began practicing intellectual property law when the field was in its infancy, said Steven J. Rocci, a partner with the firm, distinguished practice professor and member of the Law School Board.
"Bob Washburn was way, way ahead of the curve," Rocci said. "He practiced IP law before it was fashionable and he laid the ground work for a highly respected firm that continues to flourish and grow. And he did it all while remaining a true gentleman."
Washburn, who joined the firm just two years after it opened in 1946, studied patent law when just two law schools in the country taught the subject. He started out as a design engineer with General Electric, where he went to law school at night, first, at Georgetown University, then, after moving to Philadelphia in 1948, at Temple University.
"From age 10, I was interested in being a patent attorney," Washburn says, observing that his grandfather obtained 35 patents for his own inventions and that his mother grew up in Dayton, Ohio - hometown of the iconic innovators, the Wright Brothers.
Along with founders Virgil Woodcock and Lawrence Phelan, Washburn helped establish the fledgling firm's credentials in both assessing the merits of inventions and navigating the complex patent process.
Before investing resources in the development of new products, companies like DuPont turned to Washburn for advice.
Washburn sought to reassure skeptical DuPont officials about a portfolio of patent applications involving holography, saying, "I think we can get you some basic patent protection."
Ultimately, the company obtained more than 50 patents for holography, with Washburn's help.
Now used for data storage, art, optical computing and security, holograms have become ubiquitous on credit cards, foreign currency and retail merchandise.
While Washburn's clients in 1974 and 1976 received the first and third National Inventor of the Year awards ever conferred by the Intellectual Property Owners Association, Rocci credited his retired colleague with obtaining thousands of additional patents over the course of his career.
Rocci said Washburn was also responsible for bringing numerous key players aboard the firm, which now has 90 attorneys in Philadelphia, Atlanta and Seattle, has been rated as one of the top IP law firms in the country by IP Law & Business and named the top intellectual property firm for eight consecutive years in Pennsylvania by Chambers USA.