Legal Expert for Data Analysis Tool (Contract)
Legal Expert
Data Analysis Tool
We are seeking a legal expert with experience in intellectual property (IP), technology licensing, and the legal issues of handling and protecting confidential and proprietary data of customers. Specific projects may include evaluating the patentability of novel data analysis algorithms, assisting in evaluating the business case for patenting a new technology, drafting and filing patent applications, drafting technology licensing agreements, and drafting agreements to handle sensitive confidential and proprietary data from customers — data may include patient data from medical and pharmaceutical sources.
The ideal candidate will have both technical and legal experience with data analysis tools such as SAS, MATLAB, SPSS, Mathematica, etc.
Our Business
We are developing tools and algorithms to automate complex data analysis, reducing costs and increasing results.
Complex data analysis is a multi-billion dollar business. Major data analysis tool makers alone report revenues totaling over $4 billion per year: SAS Institute ($3.2 Billion), IBM SPSS ($0.3-1.0 Billion), MathWorks ($850 Million), Wolfram Research (at least $40 million), and a number of less well known smaller firms. Medical businesses, financial firms, and science and engineering organizations spend billions of dollars per year on these tools and the salaries of the analysts, scientists, and engineers performing the analyses.
Complex data analysis increasingly determines the approval of new drugs and medical treatments, medical treatment decisions for individual patients, investment decisions for banks, pensions, and individuals, important public policy decisions, and the design and development of products from airplanes and cars to smart watches and children’s toys.
State-of-the-art complex data analysis is labor intensive, time consuming, and error prone — requiring highly skilled analysts, often Ph.D.’s or other highly educated professionals, using tools with large libraries of built-in statistical and data analytical methods and tests: SAS, SPSS, MATLAB, Mathematica, Scientific Python, the R statistical programming language, Excel and similar tools. Salaries and overhead for these analysts range from $40/hour to $200/hour (using a 25 % overhead rate), sometimes even more.
Total Cost of Analyses ($50/hour)
Analysis Duration (Hours) Total Cost
2 weeks ( 80) $4,000
2 months (320) $16,000
6 months (960) $48,000
Results often take months or even years to produce, are often difficult to reproduce, difficult to present convincingly to non-specialists, difficult to audit for regulatory compliance and investor due diligence, and sometimes simply wrong, especially where the data involves human subjects or human society. Many important problems in business and society remain unsolved despite modern computer-intensive data analysis methods.
A widely cited report from the McKinsey management consulting firm suggests that the United States may face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 such human analysts by 2018: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/big-data-the-next-frontier-for-innovation
Please see our web site http://www.mathematical-software.com/ for more details.
Requirements
o At least three years of recent paid professional experience as a practicing attorney specializing in intellectual property (IP) law, technology licensing, and confidential data protection for complex algorithms embodying advanced mathematical and/or statistical methods, either software or hardware, e.g. Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).
o Law Degree from Accredited Law School
o Licensed to Practice Law in California and Delaware.
Strongly Preferred
o Specific experience with intellectual property law, technology licensing, and confidential data handling and protection for data analysis tools or services.
o At least three years of hands-on experience in data analysis. Graduate research experience leading to a Ph.D. is acceptable. Need not be current experience. We are looking for a legal expert who started out doing data analysis before entering the legal field.
Preferred
o Located in San Francisco Bay Area and can visit our office in Sunnyvale, CA if needed.
This is a part-time, contract position (not W-2).
Please send resume or curriculum vitae with cover letter.
No recruiters or head-hunters.
(C) 2018 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
