James Skippen

James "Jim" Skippen is a Canadian business executive and lawyer who is vice chairman of Quarterhill's board of directors, and former president and CEO of Canadian patent monetization firm, WiLAN. Skippen has over two decades of experience in intellectual property and patent licensing.

Since 2006, Skippen's leadership at WiLAN has been credited in helping reshape the firm's focus from technology research and development to patent licensing monetization.

Early life and education James Skippen was born and grew up in Ottawa, Canada. He attended university at University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Administration, focusing on computer science and business.

After his studies at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Administration, Skippen chose to study law, attending law school at the University of Ottawa in 1983. Skippen became interested in focusing on technology law while studying at the university.

Legal career After completing his studies at the University of Ottawa, Skippen practiced law, first as an associate of Fraser Mann, a technology transfer specialist. Skippen joined Mosaid Technologies Inc. Skippen held a number of titles at Mosaid, with the last one being the company's senior vice president of patent licensing and general counsel. At the time of Skippen's arrival at Mosaid, the Ottawa-based firm was a technology company working in various forms of computer memory technology. As his time with Mosaid continued, Skippen became increasingly convinced that licensing technology patents and protecting against infringement of these patents should be Mosaid's core business, not developing and marketing new technologies.

Five months after meeting with Nokia, Skippen and WiLAN signed a $49.2-million licensing deal with Nokia. It was a deal that achieved a number of goals. Most importantly, successfully signing a patent agreement with a company as large as Nokia showed investors and those in the technology industry that WiLAN had the clout to enforce its patents.

Postponing retirement from WiLAN In June 2015, Skippen announced publicly that he was retiring from serving as chief executive of WiLAN to "spend more time with my family and to focus on completing some other projects". The company restructuring and announcement of Skippen's retirement delay was treated positively from capital analysts like Paradigm.

Defending patent rights Over the years, Skippen has defended many times in the media a company's right to defend the patented technology it owns and defend this technology, if need be, through litigation. Skippen has stated his belief that purchasing patents or transferring the ownership of patents from one party to another should not discount an entity's ability to defend patent infringement. Skippen has also stated that a patent system and a company or individual's right to defend its intellectual property spurs innovation and encourages small inventors.

Contributions to other organizations From 2005 to 2011, Skippen served as a board member of Icron Technologies Inc., assisting the tech company in its Intellectual Property licensing program. Skippen is a member of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATAAlliance). Skippen is a member of the Licensing Executives Society and is also a member of the Executive for the Ottawa Technology Law Group. Skippen is also a former chairman of the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group.

Skippen is a former vice-chairman and director of the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Recognition Over the years, Skippen has been the recipient of a number of awards. In 2001, Skippen was a recipient of a Forty Under 40 Award by the Ottawa Business Journal. In 2011, Skippen was named the Canadian Tech Stock Executive of the Year by Cantech Letter.

Personal life Skippen lives in Ottawa, Canada. Skippen is married and has two children.