David Orozco Presents Research
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
Assistant Professor David Orozco from Michigan Technological University’s School of Business and Economics presented a research paper, “Innovation Policy and Friends of the Court: Intellectual Property Advocacy Before the US Supreme Court,” Tuesday at the Max Planck Society’s Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, in Germany.
David’s research and teaching focus on the competitive advantage obtained by the proactive management of legal rights and intellectual properties. He received a juris doctor degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor of science in economics degree from New York University. He teaches business law and entrepreneurship at Michigan Tech.
His research paper showed that firms actively shape their and rivals’ ability to protect an innovation from imitation and to capture profits generated from the innovation through their decision-making processes. This decision-making is partially based on firm-related characteristics like technological factors, strategic interactions, institutional capabilities and power relationships in bargaining situations and the firms’ preference among property rules.
David will be teaching the Entrepreneurship course for our MBA this year. Find out more about David and his research on his blog — I.P in the U.P.
Some of the businesses we visited were in the process of laying off employees or implementing rotating plant shutdowns. It was a hard example of the tough decisions that the executives were discussing with us. Harley-Davidson emphasized their culture, which was very casual, and said they carefully hire in order to match it. Allen Edmunds’ culture was completely opposite, but their philosophy was the same. At Bucyrus, they depend on one order to stay in operation for one or two years. They talked to us about how mining was changing, and how that effected their business, reminding me of how important it is for businesses to be aware of their environment. I was impressed with the confidence and commitment of the professionals who spoke to us. I learned that in order to be successful, I need to not just have a talent for my job, but also a passion.
As a spring intern working for Caterpillar Incorporated at their global headquarters in Peoria, IL, I had a phenomenal experience. Starting on the first day, I began work on extensive technical marking projects for my work group. This included a requirements consolidation project for the largest mining customers in the world, the writing of competitive analyses, which will be published by Caterpillar, a sigma project that allowed me to acquire my six sigma green belt, and Knowledge Network presentations that will be given to Cat employees in Australia, Canada, and the United States. My employment here also gave me the opportunity to go on facility tours, see new product demonstrations, and the ability to network throughout Caterpillar.
My MBA education at Michigan Tech provided me with a solid foundation to not only complete these projects at the highest level of competency, but also allowed me to be very successful. From my experience as a student at Michigan Tech, the professors excel in teaching the students how to write, present, and communicate. These are skills that I used everyday while working at Caterpillar.