Five in Five: Mark Haynes from Haynes, Beffel, and Wollfeld

By Sarah Vickers-Webb
Production & Editorial Assistant
Santa Cruz Tech Beat

April 22, 2020 — Santa Cruz, CA

“We’ve been working remotely for many years in the patent business, particularly on the patent prosecution side”

For this week’s Five and Five interview, we spoke with Mark Haynes, intellectual property attorney and partner at Haynes, Beffel, and Wollfeld, LLP. The world class patent prosecution firm has offices in Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay and manages patent portfolios for multinational corporations across the globe, from Sweden to Taiwan.

“Right now probably half our work is with what we call well-funded startups in the computer industry, focusing on artificial intelligence,” he said. “We have clients that are making integrated circuits that are optimized for artificial intelligence, we have clients that are applying AI in all kinds of settings.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter in place, Mark has worked entirely from home. He misses going to work in downtown Santa Cruz, but said the nature of his work has not changed too much since shelter in place.

“We’ve been working remotely for many years in the patent business, particularly on the patent prosecution side,” he said. “Even the US patent office is set up for remote work, most of the examiners there work at home.”

Patent prosecution involves long hours and heavy focus requirements, with each patent totalling between 20 and 40 hours of writing. Alternating between items requiring high and lower levels of concentration, he said, makes the work more manageable, particularly when working from home.

“A rule of thumb, you want to do at least four hours of concentrated work a day, and then spend the rest of the day moving little things along,” he said.

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Tagged Five in five, Haynes, Haynes Beffel & Wolfeld, Mark Haynes, Patents