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The International Society for Patent Information Professionals

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  • Stu Kaback Business Impact Award Winners
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  • Stu Kaback Business Impact Award Winners


The Stu Kaback Business Impact Award

As the PIUG's mission is to "support, assist, improve and enhance the success of patent information professionals", it follows that one of the most important functions the PIUG should serve is to highlight the importance of patent information professionals to their respective organizations and to take a more active role in promoting and encouraging the growth of our profession.

In order to promote the profession and its practitioners, PIUG established in 2013 the annual Stu Kaback Business Impact Award to honor the memory of Dr. Stuart Kaback for his many outstanding accomplishments during his stellar 42 year career at ExxonMobil. As an internationally recognized expert in patent information, a multi-award winner and a prolific writer who inspired an entire generation of patent information professionals, Stu was a deeply respected and greatly loved "force of nature". Stu's unparalleled technical expertise in patent information and a diverse range of chemical and petroleum related technologies provided invaluable support to both R&D initiatives and in the protection of ExxonMobil's intellectual property assets. Stu's accomplishments demonstrate how a patent information professional can be critical to the success of a business.

 

 

 

 

 

Award Package

The PIUG sponsored award consists of a cash award, a commemorative figurine and gratis registration at the PIUG Annual Conference, an International Conference for Patent Information Professionals. If a team is selected as the award recipient, the cash award will be divided equally among the team members, each member will receive a commemorative figurine and the gratis registration will be awarded to a team representative, as designated by the team, who will be presented with the award during the PIUG Annual Conference.

Application Process

The deadline and process details for applying for the Stu Kaback Business Impact Award will be set in conjunction with each PIUG Annual Conference. Award applicants can either be self-nominated or nominated by another. If a team is nominated, the team members can be from the same organization or from different organizations. People who wish to nominate a patent information professional or a team of patent information professionals for the award would need to contact the nominee(s) as the award application requires their input.

Examples of situations worthy of nomination include, but are not limited to:

  • performance of a patent landscaping project which helped an organization successfully manage a merger, acquisition or partnership;
  • a patent validity search which helped a company avoid or support a major lawsuit or an opposition or revocation proceeding critical to the organization;
  • the development or novel use of a tool or database involving patent information which helped an organization expand into a new market;
  • organizing an advisory board to use patent information to improve a product or service; or
  • assisting a project team with developing new ideas and exploring their patentability leading to a new product, process or service of the organization.

The nominee will also need to provide an essay in English not to exceed 1500 words describing the work they did in achieving the accomplishment and explaining the impact that it had on the organization(s) at the time of achieving the accomplishment. In the case of a team nomination, only one essay is required from a team representative. The work should be generically described without including any confidential or business sensitive information. The selection committee does not need specific details about the work, but rather needs to understand the impact the work has had on the organization. The essay should also highlight how their patent information professional skills were integral to completing the described task.

The application should also include a letter in English signed by an executive or manager from the organization on the organization's letterhead, or in the case of a team nomination, a letter in English signed by an executive or manager from each of the organizations (on respective letterhead) who requested, supervised, or was involved with the work and who can attest to the impact it had on the organization. The manager should also discuss in the testimonial how the unique abilities, talents and/or determination of the nominee(s) made the achievement possible

The successful nominee(s) and the corresponding organization(s) must also agree to permit the announcement of the award recipient(s) and naming of the corresponding organization(s) to take place via several media outlets such as the PIUG website and wiki, social media channels and/or press releases. Any applications that do not meet all of the specified requirements may be disqualified. All decisions of the PIUG, Inc. in connection with the award are final.

Stu Kaback Business Impact Award Recipients

Year Recipient Affiliation Impact on Organization
2013 Carol E. Bachmann 3M Carol was selected as the recipient of the Award for her passion and dedication in creating a current awareness patent tool and database that supports 3M in its business decisions.
2014 Yun Yun Yang, Jonathan Lippy, and Thomas Klose Bristol-Myers Squibb Yun Yun, Jonathan and Thomas were selected as the recipients of the award for their impressive teamwork in using text analytics and data visualization in patent analysis to assess kinase selectivity.
2015 Andrea Davis NuVasive Andrea was chosen for integrating and radically streamlining NuVasive's patent searching workflow; her contribution of due diligence to business development; and her identification of prior art in support of major litigation.
2016 Cynthia Gallagher Pfizer Cynthia received the award in recognition of her and her team's work in creating, standardizing, and sharing with the Pfizer IP department a series of more than 30 guides to searching for patent information on country-specific websites not often covered by commercial databases. These guides, with succinct instructions and caveats, have allowed non-information scientists, such as attorneys, to search for equivalent applications, fee payment information, and availability of full text of a granted patent
2017 Alfred Yip, Anthony Trippe,* Dr. Huang Jinquan, Dr. Koh Yung Hua, Dr. Xie Rongguo, Dr. Annabelle Lim, Dr. Eu Zhi Ang Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, *Patinformatics The team was recognized for the impact of IPOS-I in Singapore’s transformation into an innovation-driven economy, through its “Singapore Patent Landscape Report 2014”. (Press release)
2018 Amy De Costerand, Janet Larsen Kimberly-Clark Amy and Janet were recognized for their work on using process improvement to make handling their search requests more efficient. They implemented a visual management board and a daily stand-up meeting that improved their efficiency significantly.
2020 Martha Yates Bayer Martha was recognized for creating a comprehensive patent portfolio database, which created tremendous value to Bayer, through patent marking and licensing activities. Read the Awards Presentation by Shelley Pavlek and view Martha's Stu Kaback Business Impact Award acceptance presentation highlighting her efforts on Patent Marking.
2021 Philippe Ayala, Nicholas Cockroft, Yi Deng, Rodney Fulford, Mark Grabau, Dmitri Polshakov, Donald Swartwout, and Jeffrey Wilson CAS The CAS team was recognized for their Intelligent Prior Art Search (IPAS) tool and the direct impact it had on Brazil’s patent office, the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI).
2022 Sophie Bail, Shelley Pavlek, and Yun Yun Yang Bristol Myers Squibb The BMS team was recognized for their work on the Myokardia acquisition and the MORAb-202 collaboration with Eisai, which illustrates the critical role that patent information plays within the organization.

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