UP CLOSE / SCOTT FRANK, president and CEO, AT&T Intellectual Property: Idea man

Scott Frank is part idea-protector, part internal public relations guy at AT&T. While he’s in charge of making sure AT&T’s inventions and innovations —- couched under the name “intellectual property” —- are protected, he also spends a lot of time meeting with people all across the company, encouraging them to come up with new ideas.

Protecting and licensing intellectual property isn’t an entirely new thing at AT&T, but it’s something that the former BellSouth didn’t do as much of when it was first formed. Frank said it was BellSouth’s focus on the mobile phone business combined with increased competition that forced the company to look at its innovations and make sure they were properly protected.

Frank says the intellectual property side of AT&T ends up being highly profitable. There are no research-and-development costs, AT&T doesn’t have to make anything or put more money into the wireless network, for example. The two main costs are people and the cost of protecting the invention, Frank said.

“Almost every dollar we make is profit,” Frank said. “More corporations are understanding that —- if they protect them properly and license them and sell them, it’s almost pure profit.”

Q: Walk me through what you do.

A: Any idea, invention, innovation that an employee has, or a vendor under contract to us that is doing development work for us, we have to make sure it’s identified and protected. We also try to make sure we maximize the value from it by allowing the core business [to use it] or by contracting it out.

Q: Could you expand on the second part of that?

A: We would license to anybody who would want it. Oftentimes it’s other companies in our industry. We’ve also found additional value from allowing our competitors and others to use our technology.

Q: Why is IP important to AT&T?

A: Any company that’s going to succeed in the future must have unique competitive differentiators. If you don’t protect those with intellectual property, essentially anybody can copy them, use them, protect them. If you don’t protect them, they can claim them as their own property.

Q: Do patents make it easier or harder for AT&T to work with other telecom companies —- i.e., ones that want to market applications for mobile phones?

A: I think it makes it easier. All we’re looking for is a fair deal. We want to move this industry forward. We realize this pie is very big. We can make it bigger if we continue to work together.

Q: What sorts of patents did AT&T work on in the last year?

A: We’re all really getting excited about video over the Internet. AT&T is working on some very innovative video compression technology. We are now licensing that to many other companies, and we’re talking to many other companies.

Q: How often is AT&T in the middle of patent infringement lawsuits?

A: When it’s our intellectual property, our goal is to make our intellectual property available to the world. All we want to do is be paid fairly for it. In instances when companies want to use our intellectual property and not pay us for it, we try and talk to them reasonably and work out an amicable solution.

If there’s an infringement, it’s no different than someone else coming to your house and sleeping in your bed. If companies come after, we’ll take a look. If we believe we need a license, we’ll take it out.

Q: Does it make you angry if you see another person or company infringing on AT&T’s patents?

A: Honestly, it does not make me or the company angry. We always go into it with a positive attitude —- that this company was unaware —- it’s an opportunity to generate revenues and profits for the corporation.

Q: Do you think people try to go after AT&T because it’s the big dog?

A: I think anybody that owns intellectual property has the right to be paid a fair and reasonable royalty for the use of it. I think AT&T is a very big company, and it’s a very innovative company, so we’re in an obvious place for anyone with intellectual property to look.

Q: What do you like best about your job?

A: It’s an area that is still very young, intellectual-property businesses are still very young. To me, it’s a lot like the Internet was 10 years ago or where the mobility business was 20 years ago. We’re on the cutting edge of a new industry, and we’re able to innovate in our own right, but how we’re going to license and sell them. … Every day is an adventure.

Q: Where are we sitting?

A: This is the corporate innovation room. We get people from all across the company in this room and throw something out there and brainstorm. Some of our most valuable innovations come out of this room.

THE SCOTT FRANK FILE

> Residence: Dunwoody

> Family: Wife, Marie; children, Dennis, 12; Danielle, 11; David, 8; Diana, 7

> What’s in CD player: Garth Brooks

> Last movie seen : “The Kite Runner”

> Last vacation: Virginia Beach (in August)

> What did you eat for breakfast: Fruit