作者:Anna Stolley Persky
2017年4月17日
吉姆·马克维斯是西蒙斯·马克维斯澳博app事务所的联合创始人, 在西雅图有办事处吗, 纽波特比奇, 加州, 和华盛顿, D.C. Markwith’s practice focuses on providing transactional and corporate advice to technology companies. Markwith在信息技术方面拥有深厚的专业知识, 知识产权保护, 医疗保健法.
在2015年联合创立Symons Markwith之前, he served as in-house counsel for the high-profile companies of Adobe Systems, 微软, 通用电气医疗保健IT, 和Allscripts医疗保健. Before attending Santa Clara University School of Law, Markwith served as a U.S. 海军飞行员,在美国大学教授经济学.S. 海军学院.
在你上法学院之前,你做过几年飞行员. How did you end up on that career track and why did you switch to law?
Actually, after getting my undergraduate degree, I had planned on going to law school. I applied to law school and then, on a whim, applied to the Navy flight program. I got into both programs and decided I could postpone my legal career while I went to flight school. 仔细想想,我有两个选择. 我可能会招致更多的学生贷款, or I could have someone pay me and support my country 同时. 作为一名军事飞行员,我很感兴趣. 我对报效国家很感兴趣, 我觉得开飞机是个很好的方法. 看起来会很有挑战性,事实也确实如此. I had no flight experience at all, so I learned everything from scratch. I eventually went back to what I had planned to do in the first place, 哪个是上法学院.
在你澳博app生涯的早期, you focused on intellectual property law and set your sights on an in-house position. 为什么?
这很简单. 我一直对知识产权很感兴趣. 它是企业必须提供的价值的核心. My first summer associate job during law school was at a firm in Silicon Valley, so I got some experience with technology companies right from the start of my career. 有一次我决定专注于知识产权, 我学的是软件和技术, 从那以后,我一直保持着对最新技术的了解. I knew early on that I wanted to be an in-house corporate counsel because I thought that was the best opportunity to get closer to the technology and the process of bringing technologies to market.
Before starting your firm, you worked at a number of technology companies. 你从你的内部经验中获得了什么专业知识?
在Adobe和微软, 我首先要专注于纯软件, 知识产权及许可, 然后是信息技术, 云计算, 标准设置和互操作性. Both positions really expanded my horizons from a technology perspective. 我是 . . . CodePlex的首席法律顾问, 微软的开源项目, and I helped close over 40 acquisitions involving a wide array of technologies. 转向医疗保健IT行业, 我是 able to use my technology and IT background and learn health care privacy laws, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and related regulations. 我致力于改善医疗保健的相关问题, 不仅仅是在政策基础上, but by helping my clients create and utilize information technology to improve [it].
You went back to private practice in 2014 and cofounded Symons Markwith in 2015. What kinds of clients do you have and what type of work are you doing these days?
我有很多客户, from startups to very large Internet web services providers and other technology leaders. 我为客户提供各种各样的服务, including negotiating important transactions and drafting terms and conditions for product offerings. 我还处理开源软件的使用和遵从性等问题, 支持企业并购, 以及基于云的产品开发. 从一开始, 当我开始我的职业生涯, 我的客户都是技术前沿的. It’s still like that—my clients are really on the cutting edge of technology, 这就是我喜欢的方式.
除了你的澳博app执业, you teach intellectual property law at the University of Washington School of Law. 你的教学背景是什么?为什么继续这样做?
While 我是 in the Navy, I earned my MBA and then began teaching economics at the U.S. 海军学院. 当我开始在圣克拉拉大学法学院学习时, I set my schedule up so I could go to law school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then teach economics at Santa Clara University on a full-time basis the other days of the week. 它帮助支付了法学院的学费. I still teach, although now I teach about the law and, specifically, intellectual property. 我教书是因为我喜欢教书. To prepare for a class, I have to dig deeply into the subject and really understand it. 教学帮助我与时俱进. 最近, I am a mentor and adjunct professor for the Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic at Santa Clara University School of Law, where I teach and mentor second- and third-year law students as they provide real-life legal support to Silicon Valley startups.
You have spent a good part of your career counseling clients on health care technology issues. What kind of challenges does the health care industry face when it comes to technology?
近来,人们对卫生保健给予了很大的关注, 重点是降低成本和, 同时, 改善获得护理的机会. The issues related to that concern patient and provider access to medical records, 利用大数据改善医疗保健. Access to health care data can help improve treatments and outcomes while being more cost effective. The challenge is how do we as lawyers help our clients solve access issues to big data, 使用新技术, 同时保护他们的知识产权和数据权利? And how do you give or get access to health care data while complying with regulations and maintaining patient privacy? Another question our society faces concerns interoperability in the health care industry. 现在, patient records are stored in proprietary data formats that are not readable by other electronic health care systems. 某家医院, 例如, will have records that are not readable by another hospital using another electronic health care record system. Because of that and other challenges, hospitals still resort to faxing records to each other. 这是几十年前的技术. 这一点效率都没有. 所以我们需要一个全国性的基础设施, 互操作性标准, 以及解决这个问题的技术. One of my early clients, the CommonWell Health Alliance, is working on that. [It] is a nonprofit industry alliance that is working on that challenge, allowing health care records to be accessible from wherever the patient is, 在尊重病人隐私的同时. I believe this will continue to be one of our society’s biggest challenges in the next decade.