Our Story
Patents.com was started by Rob Monster and Paul Ratcliffe around a core idea -- to create a single portal where patent professionals from around the world could search every patent and every patent application from every patent office around the world, and to do this in the language of their choice. Paul, a patent attorney and former patent examiner at the USPTO, was CEO of PatentMonkey, an early innovator in the field of patent search. Rob, who spent his early career in product development at Procter & Gamble based in Europe and Asia, was serving as a Director at Worldlingo, a leading provider of translation services and technology to the European Patent Office. The team joined forces to create Patents.com, a company that would embark on the audacious project of creating a World of Patents. Welcome to our world.
Signed Rob Monster and Paul Ratcliffe
Executive Team:
Rob Monster - Chairman
Robert W. Monster leads Monster Venture Partners (MVP), an early-stage venture capital firm based in Seattle, focused on Global Technology opportunities in the area of Consumer Healthcare, Social networks, and Internet Marketing.
Mr. Monster was the Founder of GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), a leading provider of technology-enabled services to the global market research industry. Mr. Monster served as Chairman and CEO from 1999-2007, during which time GMI achieved annual revenue growth of 100+% per year and expanded to serve customers in more than 60 countries.
Prior to founding GMI, Mr. Monster was a global product development manager with Procter & Gamble. During an eight year technology management career with P&G, Mr. Monster worked and lived in Europe, Asia, and North America.
Mr. Monster, a Dutch-American, is fluent in English, Dutch, and German. Mr. Monster has a BS and MBA from Cornell University where he studied Life Sciences and Economics. Mr. Monster is co-author of "Market Research in the Internet Age", published by John Wiley & Sons.
Mr. Monster is winner of the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in Technology and Software (Pacific Northwest). He serves on the boards of GMI, Healthcare.com, Demoxi, Clickable.com, Gateskate, GoLife Mobile, Worldlingo and Patents.com.
Paul Ratcliffe - Chief Executive Officer
Paul is a registered patent attorney and has experience in all facets intellectual property management. He has led profitable intellectual property licensing and enforcement campaigns, portfolio analysis activities, licensing agreement negotiations and all aspects of product and technology clearance and protection. Paul was in-house patent counsel for Black & Decker in charge of their Outdoor, Home Products and New Business divisions. Paul was a former patent examiner at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office prior to practicing law at two prominent law firms: Dickstein Shapiro and Greenberg Traurig.
In addition to his law degree from Catholic University, Paul has a bachelor's degree in engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a master's degree in engineering from Catholic University. Paul is an inventor with several pending patents and won a national award for his engineering designs.
John Frankel - Director
John F. Frankel, founder of ff Asset Management LLC, has been an early stage venture investor for the past eight years, with a broad portfolio of investments. He has worked closely with entrepreneurs in a variety of fields and has experience advising start-ups.
Mr. Frankel started his business career with Arthur Anderson & Co. in the audit and insolvency divisions. He spent the following twenty one years at Goldman,Sachs & Co. in a variety of roles that involved technology development, reengineering, and capital markets. His primary focus is helping early stage companies deploy lightweight disruptive business models to become the low cost player in their respective market. Mr. Frankel was a board director of Quigo Technologies, Inc. which was purchased by AOL in December 2007, and a board member of Alerts.com and sits on the advisory board of Phone.com.
Mr. Frankel earned a MA from New College, Oxford where he studied Mathematics, Philosophy and Logic, and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Advisory Board
Brad Brunell - Advisor
Brad Brunell is a Senior Vice President, responsible for Corporate Development, at Acacia Technologies, LLC. Mr. Brunell joined Acacia from Microsoft, where during his 16 years, he held a number of management positions, including General Manager of Intellectual Property Licensing, responsible for inbound and outbound patent licensing. He created and managed a team of negotiation, financial and legal experts which developed outbound intellectual property licensing programs and brought in intellectual property via acquisitions, strategic partnerships and licensing. Previously, as a Senior Director he was in a strategy role focusing on digital media adoption including key deals with partners and putting together the Content Guard ownership structure between Microsoft, Time Warner and Thomson and serving on the board of Content Guard, a digital rights management patent licensing company. Mr. Brunell holds a B.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Stephen Pinkos - Advisor
From 2004-2007, Steve served as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property (IP) Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In this position, Steve was a leading intellectual property policy-maker; developing and articulating Bush Administration policy positions on all patent, trademark and copyright issues, both foreign and domestic. In addition to managing the operations at the USPTO, an agency with 8,000 employees and a $1.7 billion budget, Steve was integral to the Bush Administration's efforts to devise and implement strategies to promote the global IP interests of U.S businesses and to thwart the global counterfeiting of U.S. products. This included a leadership role in the STOP! Initiative, the Administration's cross-agency anti-piracy/counterfeiting campaign. He also spearheaded USPTO efforts to facilitate greater efficiency and stronger cooperation among the USPTO and other IP offices around the world.
Prior to his USPTO appointment, Steve served in the United States Congress for 9 years in various senior staff positions. After working in the office of Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner for 3 years, Steve worked for the House Committee on the Judiciary for six years under Chairmen Hyde and Sensenbrenner. As Committee Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel from 2001-2004, Steve managed the Congressional consideration of significant IP reforms, including the Patent and Trademark Modernization Act of 2003 (passed House in 2004); Copyright Arbitration Reform (enacted in 2004); and the Madrid Protocol Implementation Act (Trademark legislation enacted in 2002). In addition to his IP work, Steve coordinated a legislative and oversight agenda that included the Congressional consideration of trade agreements; litigation management proposals; immigration, antitrust and bankruptcy law changes; and law enforcement oversight and legislation, including anti-terrorism laws.
Steve graduated from Miami University in 1992 and DePaul University College of Law in 1995. He and his wife Camille have two daughters, Channing and Lyla.