Senior Director, Intellectual Property Counsel

Our Company

At Teradata, we believe that people thrive when empowered with better information. Teradata Autonomous Knowledge Platform activates enterprise intelligence by unifying data, knowledge and business context to achieve tangible outcomes. With Teradata, organizations can provide agents with full context for impact when it matters. Our solution lets businesses connect and scale on premises, in the cloud, or through a hybrid approach. Teradata delivers real business value with AI.

What You'll Do

The Senior Director, Intellectual Property Counsel is a senior leadership position within the Teradata Law Department, responsible for developing and executing Teradata’s comprehensive intellectual property strategy across patents, trademarks, copyrights, and related IP assets. This highly visible role serves as the primary IP legal advisor to executive leadership, product, engineering, and go-to-market teams, and works cross-functionally across the organization to protect, develop, monetize, and enforce Teradata’s intellectual property portfolio. The Senior Director will manage a small team of IP professionals and outside counsel, and will operate as a trusted strategic partner across the enterprise.  

Key Areas of Responsibility  

Patent Strategy & Portfolio Development  

• Drive and execute Teradata’s corporate patent strategy in furtherance of defense, enforcement, and monetization goals, in regular cadence with the Patent Strategy Committee (CTO, CPO, CAO).  
• Oversee and provide senior strategic leadership for invention recognition, mining, collection, review, and selection activities.  
• Provide strategic guidance and oversight for all patent filing, prosecution, and maintenance activities globally, directing and closely supervising outside patent counsel.  
• Drive patent maintenance, divestiture, and monetization programs in furtherance of corporate patent strategy.  
• Drive enforcement and defense preparedness through portfolio technology categorization and market-mapping analytics.  

AI-Enabled Legal Practice  

• Champion the adoption of AI-powered legal tools and workflows across the IP function, including AI-assisted patent drafting and prosecution support, agentic prior art and freedom-to-operate research, LLM-assisted claim charting and portfolio analytics, and AI-enhanced contract review and licensing intelligence.  
• Develop and enforce protocols for responsible use of generative and agentic AI tools within the IP team, consistent with attorney ethical obligations regarding competence, confidentiality, and candor, and aligned with guidance from applicable bar associations and the ABA.  
• Evaluate, select, and oversee IP-specific AI platforms (e.g., AI-assisted patent drafting tools, agentic patent search, AI-powered docketing and analytics) and ensure the team is trained to leverage them effectively and safely.  
• Establish governance standards and review workflows to ensure AI-generated legal work product meets Teradata's quality, accuracy, and ethical standards before use or submission.  

IP Strategy in Support of Teradata's AI Business  

• Serve as the primary IP legal partner to the CTO, CPO, and AI leadership team, aligning Teradata's IP strategy with its AI product roadmap — including protection of innovations across the autonomous AI platform, Enterprise Vector Store, AgentStack, AI Factory, industry-specific agents, and knowledge frameworks.  
• Develop and execute a patent strategy for Teradata's AI and agentic systems innovations, spanning data integration, multi-agent orchestration, model governance, RAG pipeline architectures, and industry-specific AI knowledge models, ensuring the portfolio reflects and reinforces Teradata's core product differentiation.  

NPE Risk Management  

• Own and manage Teradata’s patent risk management relationship with third-party organizations.  
• Drive Teradata’s access to and participation in licenses to NPE portfolios.  
• Conduct frequent NPE risk assessment and mitigation analyses.  

Trademark & Brand Protection  

• Provide counseling and education to marketing and executive teams on overall branding, naming, usage, protection, and comparative marketing strategies and practices.  
• Conduct and oversee trademark clearance studies and opinions for new product and brand names, limiting outside counsel involvement to medium- and higher-risk activities.  
• Drive global trademark registration activity and portfolio maintenance, directing and closely supervising outside trademark counsel.  

Copyright Protection & Counseling  

• Drive trade secret protection strategy and practices  
• Manage copyright registration for flagship software products.  
• Provide guidance and counseling on all copyright-related needs.  

IP Transactions & Licensing  

• Lead and support IP-centric transactions with technology and go-to-market partners and with customers.  
• Support Product and GTM teams in the use, licensing, and delivery of IP assets to customers and partners, including industry data models, newly developed agents and consulting tools, product-support tools, and tools leveraging open-source and third-party code.  
• Support IP-centric partnership and customer transactions.  
• Develop and manage policies for use and release of open-source material; counsel on open-source licensing and compliance.  

IP Litigation & Dispute Support  

• Provide subject matter expertise on all IP-related disputes and litigation matters.  
• Serve as first line of defense in trademark and non-software copyright disputes.  

IP Technology Systems  

• Oversee and administer effective use and maintenance of IP program technology tools, including patent and trademark docketing systems, invention management platforms, and patent procurement and dispute analytics tools.  

IP Education, Policy & Governance  

• Develop and maintain IP-related stakeholder education programs and policies across the enterprise.  
• Lead IP due diligence in M&A and technology transactions.  
• Lead IP support for SEC and public filings and disclosures.  

Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration  

• Provide strategic leadership for the business at its most senior leadership levels.  
• Present complex legal and technical concepts clearly and persuasively to executive leadership and non-legal audiences.  
• Manage outside counsel relationships and budgets across patent, trademark, and other IP matters, ensuring cost-effective and high-quality legal support.  

Who You'll Work With

The Senior Director will manage a small team of IP professionals and outside counsel, and will operate as a trusted strategic partner across the enterprise. 

What Makes You a Qualified Candidate

• Juris Doctor (J.D.) from an accredited law school; active bar membership in at least one U.S. jurisdiction required.  
• USPTO registration (admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office) strongly preferred.  
• Minimum of 15 years of intellectual property law experience, including meaningful in-house experience at a technology company; a combination of law firm and in-house experience is preferred.  
• Demonstrated experience managing global patent and trademark portfolios, outside counsel relationships, and NPE/PAE risk.  
• Technical background in computer science, software engineering, data analytics, or a related field is a strong plus.  

What You'll Bring

• Deep knowledge of U.S. patent law and practice, with significant experience in patent prosecution, portfolio strategy, NPE defense, and IP monetization.  
• Demonstrated fluency in the IP landscape for artificial intelligence, including patent strategies for ML, generative AI, and agentic AI systems; trade secret protection for training data and model weights; copyright issues in AI-generated works; and IP risk management in AI technology transactions.  
• Broad IP expertise spanning patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, open-source licensing, and IP aspects of commercial and M&A transactions.  
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute IP strategies aligned with business objectives in a technology company environment.  
• Experience managing and directing outside counsel across multiple jurisdictions and disciplines, with a focus on quality and cost control.  
• Ability to work effectively at the VP+ level and communicate complex IP concepts to non-legal audiences including engineers, product managers, and executives.  
• Strong commercial instincts and business judgment; ability to triage a heavy workflow and prioritize in alignment with business strategy.  
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to draft and negotiate IP-related agreements, licensing arrangements, and technology transactions.  
• Experience with IP program technology tools such as CPI and PatSnap, or comparable docketing and analytics platforms.  
• Self-starter with strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple complex matters simultaneously with minimal supervision.  
• High ethical standards and the ability to handle sensitive matters with discretion and sound judgment.  

Why We Think You'll Love Teradata 

We prioritize a people-first culture because we know our people are at the very heart of our success. We embrace a flexible work model because we trust our people to make decisions about how, when, and where they work. We focus on well-being because we care about our people and their ability to thrive both personally and professionally. We are committed to actively working to foster an inclusive environment that celebrates people for all of who they are. 

#LI-OC1