Cisco Systems Inc. knows how to bring people and ideas together. Founded in 1984, the San Jose-based tech giant has become the world’s largest networking provider, making the routers and switches that carry data, voice and video traffic across the Internet to the corner office. The company has been expanding from its traditional role as an IT supplier, adding new consumer products to its lineup in recent years. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) employes some 70,000 people worldwide and booked $43.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2011, up from $40 billion in 2010.
The Patent Professional
Ensuring that Cisco’s portfolio of about 11,000 issued patents expands and evolves to support company objectives is the job of Dan Lang, vice president of intellectual property and deputy general counsel. Lang, a Townsend and Townsend and Crew alumnus with a background in electrical engineering, oversees pretty much everything related to patents at Cisco, except litigation. That’s a separate group that he helps support.
