Lucent officials are apoplectic at industry accusations that it's using its patents to slow down competitors or give itself breathing space to complete its own enterprise product line.
Michael Greene, chief operating officer of Lucent's Intellectual Property business unit, maintains that patent assertion and product development at Lucent have nothing to do with each other. The proof? He says no one stops him from deciding which companies to pursue for patent violations and licensing agreements.
"I'm going to go where the money is," Greene says. "I don't speak to the [other Lucent business] units about what I plan to do. In fact, after I've started the process, sometimes they call me and say, 'Gee, you're upsetting this company,' but I don't stop."
Still, analysts believe that Lucent's patent division does keep its eye on other business units in at least one sense - keeping Lucent's own employees from jumping ship.
According to Yankee Group President Howard Anderson, venture capitalists are targeting groups of Bell Labs specialists with start-up opportunities and the lure of "How would you like to be worth $50 million in five years?"
They're also targeting groups in key Lucent acquisitions such as Kenan Systems, a Cambridge, Mass. provider of carrier billing systems. The pickings may be especially ripe there because Lucent's purchase price of $1.48 billion was all paid to one man - its founder, Kenan Sahin. "There is an anger floating over the Charles River today," Anderson says. "Everybody [at Kenan ] is saying, 'Where's mine?'"
As a result, Lucent's intellectual property strategy is designed to impress their own employees as well as the outside world. "They'd like to keep their Indians on the reservation," Anderson says. "That way they have to think twice before they leave with any of their intellectual assets."
