John Gartman is one of San Diego’s most successful lawyers.
In 2008, he won the largest patent infringement case in U.S. history, overturning a verdict against Microsoft that saved the company $1.5 billion. Ultimately, there were seven cases in what amounted “to a global patent war,” Gartman said.
A specialist in intellectual property rights, he believes strongly in the primacy of the inventor. As a father of three, he also believes every child is instinctively an inventor, and so he and his wife, Jill, recently launched The Invention Foundation in San Diego.
The foundation will initially work with 180 students from underserved middle schools and five teachers to foster invention fairs and creativity camps in conjunction with the San Diego Zoo, whose foundation Gartman also heads.
As a philanthropist concerned with conservation issues, he sits on the board of Nature & Culture International, an organization that has protected 10 million acres in biodiverse areas of Ecuador and Peru.
He recently talked to the U-T about how his work and philanthropy connect.
Q: What type of law do you do?
A: Intellectual property, inventors, mostly patents. I represent idea creators wherever they come from, and help them develop their ideas, protect them and turn them into money whether by securing venture capital, brokering, selling or purchasing their technology, or when necessary, enforcing their rights in courts across the country.
Q: What’s the significance of that to San Diego?
A: Huge. We’re a technology city, with hundreds of thousands of jobs dependent on our tech sectors such as biotech and telecommunications. Those industries were born because of inventors and they got funded because the investment community believed legal structures are in place that will protect their investments and allow them financial rewards if the ideas and inventions have merit.
Q: How did you get involved in giving back?
A: In my early 20s, I began giving to organizations that worked to preserve the oceans and planet — because I grew up knowing that all life deserves respect. Early on, I also gave my time to teaching and tutoring young kids, with a particular love for explaining the natural world and creative thinking and science.
Q: How have your ideas about giving back changed over time?
A: I now feel a sense of philanthropic urgency and impatience. Especially with conservation and our youth, we must take massive action fast, otherwise opportunities, ecosystems and generations of kids who had no opportunity will be lost. Because of the public funding situation in California, if we don’t help with music, art and creativity, we will lose that generation. Second, I’ve come to understand the leverage that kids give our philanthropy. If we reach kids early with conservation and creativity programs, we will not only change them for life, but we will have created ambassadors for life that will change countless others with an enthusiasm far surpassing our own. It’s multiplier philanthropy.
Q: How did you get started in your career?
A: I’m a hybrid: engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and lawyer. I grew up interested in science. My first love was scuba diving, and I wanted to be an oceanographer, live on a ship and research the oceans. Later, I began to see non-ocean things that also stumped me — like what was actually happening inside my car radio — and I needed to know the answers. So I decided to become a physicist, which led to engineering ... Law never interested me until my last month of college. I was about to graduate, with plans to head to Stanford to get a Ph.D., become a professor and teach electrical engineering. One evening while doing my laundry, I ran into a law professor who was teaching my government class. We hit it off. For the next 30 nights, we hung out arguing over law, politics and philosophy, and then I headed off to law school. At least I became a high-technology lawyer.
Q: Who are the people who have most inspired you?
A: My answer changes yearly. Mainstays include famous people I never got to meet: da Vinci, for his breadth; Ely Callaway, founder of Callaway Golf and Callaway Wine, for his courage in trying new things; a French mathematician named Fourier, who changed my view of the physical world forever. But as often as not it’s been the person I barely knew who had the guts to live a courageous life on her own terms completely against the grain of popular pressure and the demands of our time.
Q: What would the one thing be, in your mind, that would make San Diego a better place?
A: More opportunities for youth to be creative. This is one reason my wife and I created the Invention Foundation, to fuel innovative thinking and creativity in underserved youth. Recently, we teamed with San Diego Zoo Global to sponsor an innovative on-site Conservation Creativity Camp for students and teachers from Title 1 schools in San Diego County. The camp will challenge students to be creative, innovative and engaged. We want to give youth both confidence as learners and hope for their future.
Q: What is your advice to young people today?
A: Have the courage to leave the crowd and live your dream. No amount of money can buy back time that you wasted doing something you don’t love.
Q: What are your thoughts on conservation?
A: Earth and the species on it are not disposable resources to be consumed until gone. The science is clear: If we don’t rapidly learn to conserve and preserve, then life as we know it will change dramatically. We don’t know exactly when or how, but why should we take that risk when we can never bring back even one extinct species? Surely we don’t want that to be the legacy we leave our children. Our goal must be to live on the planet as respectful neighbors of other species.
Invention Foundation
For more information about the Invention Foundation, please visit our website:
www. inventionfoundation.org
In 2008, he won the largest patent infringement case in U.S. history, overturning a verdict against Microsoft that saved the company $1.5 billion. Ultimately, there were seven cases in what amounted “to a global patent war,” Gartman said.
A specialist in intellectual property rights, he believes strongly in the primacy of the inventor. As a father of three, he also believes every child is instinctively an inventor, and so he and his wife, Jill, recently launched The Invention Foundation in San Diego.
The foundation will initially work with 180 students from underserved middle schools and five teachers to foster invention fairs and creativity camps in conjunction with the San Diego Zoo, whose foundation Gartman also heads.
As a philanthropist concerned with conservation issues, he sits on the board of Nature & Culture International, an organization that has protected 10 million acres in biodiverse areas of Ecuador and Peru.
He recently talked to the U-T about how his work and philanthropy connect.
Q: What type of law do you do?
A: Intellectual property, inventors, mostly patents. I represent idea creators wherever they come from, and help them develop their ideas, protect them and turn them into money whether by securing venture capital, brokering, selling or purchasing their technology, or when necessary, enforcing their rights in courts across the country.
Q: What’s the significance of that to San Diego?
A: Huge. We’re a technology city, with hundreds of thousands of jobs dependent on our tech sectors such as biotech and telecommunications. Those industries were born because of inventors and they got funded because the investment community believed legal structures are in place that will protect their investments and allow them financial rewards if the ideas and inventions have merit.
Q: How did you get involved in giving back?
A: In my early 20s, I began giving to organizations that worked to preserve the oceans and planet — because I grew up knowing that all life deserves respect. Early on, I also gave my time to teaching and tutoring young kids, with a particular love for explaining the natural world and creative thinking and science.
Q: How have your ideas about giving back changed over time?
A: I now feel a sense of philanthropic urgency and impatience. Especially with conservation and our youth, we must take massive action fast, otherwise opportunities, ecosystems and generations of kids who had no opportunity will be lost. Because of the public funding situation in California, if we don’t help with music, art and creativity, we will lose that generation. Second, I’ve come to understand the leverage that kids give our philanthropy. If we reach kids early with conservation and creativity programs, we will not only change them for life, but we will have created ambassadors for life that will change countless others with an enthusiasm far surpassing our own. It’s multiplier philanthropy.
Q: How did you get started in your career?
A: I’m a hybrid: engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and lawyer. I grew up interested in science. My first love was scuba diving, and I wanted to be an oceanographer, live on a ship and research the oceans. Later, I began to see non-ocean things that also stumped me — like what was actually happening inside my car radio — and I needed to know the answers. So I decided to become a physicist, which led to engineering ... Law never interested me until my last month of college. I was about to graduate, with plans to head to Stanford to get a Ph.D., become a professor and teach electrical engineering. One evening while doing my laundry, I ran into a law professor who was teaching my government class. We hit it off. For the next 30 nights, we hung out arguing over law, politics and philosophy, and then I headed off to law school. At least I became a high-technology lawyer.
Q: Who are the people who have most inspired you?
A: My answer changes yearly. Mainstays include famous people I never got to meet: da Vinci, for his breadth; Ely Callaway, founder of Callaway Golf and Callaway Wine, for his courage in trying new things; a French mathematician named Fourier, who changed my view of the physical world forever. But as often as not it’s been the person I barely knew who had the guts to live a courageous life on her own terms completely against the grain of popular pressure and the demands of our time.
Q: What would the one thing be, in your mind, that would make San Diego a better place?
A: More opportunities for youth to be creative. This is one reason my wife and I created the Invention Foundation, to fuel innovative thinking and creativity in underserved youth. Recently, we teamed with San Diego Zoo Global to sponsor an innovative on-site Conservation Creativity Camp for students and teachers from Title 1 schools in San Diego County. The camp will challenge students to be creative, innovative and engaged. We want to give youth both confidence as learners and hope for their future.
Q: What is your advice to young people today?
A: Have the courage to leave the crowd and live your dream. No amount of money can buy back time that you wasted doing something you don’t love.
Q: What are your thoughts on conservation?
A: Earth and the species on it are not disposable resources to be consumed until gone. The science is clear: If we don’t rapidly learn to conserve and preserve, then life as we know it will change dramatically. We don’t know exactly when or how, but why should we take that risk when we can never bring back even one extinct species? Surely we don’t want that to be the legacy we leave our children. Our goal must be to live on the planet as respectful neighbors of other species.
Invention Foundation
For more information about the Invention Foundation, please visit our website:
www. inventionfoundation.org
