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Yi Chen

is Intellectual Property Counsel at Volvo Cars in Shanghai, China, overseeing the company’s IP matters in the APAC region. In addition to her IP role, Yi also serves as the APAC Investment Director for Volvo Car Ventures, driving the company’s venture capital investments in the APAC region. Before joining Volvo Cars, Yi was a patent litigator at Tensegrity Law Group, litigating high-stake patent cases in U.S. federal courts, ITC, and PTAB. She received her B.S. from Fudan University, an M.S. from Penn State University and her J.D. from the Cardozo School of Law. She is fluent in Mandarin, and a member of the California, Texas and USPTO bars.

Recent Articles by Yi Chen

In First Half of 2021, 63% of U.S. Patents, 48.9% at EPO and 40.1% in China Were Software-Related

As an update to my posts from 2017, 2019, 2020, and March 2021, it has now been 86 months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision. Yet the debate still rages over when a software (or computer-implemented) claim is patentable versus being simply an abstract idea “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none” (as eloquently phrased over 73 years ago by then-Supreme Court Justice Douglas in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.). Further, it has been 10 years since famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote the influential and often-quoted op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Software Is Eating the World.” Today, the digital transformation where software is “eating the world” is undeniable. Let’s look at some facts and figures from the USA, Europe and China.