What Legal Teams in the Semiconductor Industry Can Learn from Barbie

The Semi Interesting Podcast with Nathaniel Lucek and Elizabeth Morris

While the knockoff concerns and “packaging” are a little different, the underlying legal problems are surprisingly similar between the semiconductor and toy industries. Both have extremely complex supply chains. Knockoffs in either space can lead to costly reliability and quality problems. For both, IP is one of the most valuable assets and represents thousands of hours of development and market research.

Nathaniel and Elizabeth were joined by Jordan Walbesser, Director of Legal & Business Affairs at Mattel, Inc., to learn more about how the toy industry approaches these issues. They talked about a more friendly approach to licensing, working upstream in the supply chain, RFPs, and how to protect products when patent protection isn’t appropriate (or isn’t possible). On the last point, Jordan explained that product quality and customer service can protect you when patent protection is limited – whether that cost-sensitive customer is a parent shopping for an upcoming birthday or a massive multinational company.