Barbara Landon and Rita Stark organize Landon & Stark Associates. They begin their partnership as a patent and trademark file history provider for GE RCA of Princeton, New Jersey. Both women are former patent secretaries at Stevens Davis Miller and Mosher in Washington, DC, and known for assembling high quality patent and trademark files.

David Hunt joins Landon & Stark Associates and transforms the company from a document service into a professional patent search company. He creates the leading patent search firm in the United States by employing former patent examiners, scientific advisors, and practicing engineers in all major technology areas.

Brad Buehler joins the company and implements business practices that deliver the industry’s fastest patent search turnaround and, arguably, it’s best quality. The company becomes well-known for its operational process and its deep bench of highly trained patent analysts.

Led by Hunt and Buehler, Landon IP is awarded a long-term contract to conduct PCT patent searches for the USPTO in the fields of mechanical engineering, life sciences, physical sciences, and electrical communications. The company is the only firm to survive both the USPTO search pilot and be awarded full PCT search contracts in 2006 and 2011. At the same time, Hunt purchases Patent Resources Group (PRG) from the legendary Irving Kayton and expands the curriculum to include professional patent searching.

Ted Klekman joins the firm to lead its sales team. Within two years, he doubles patent search revenues, builds a global sales team, generates new sales in the U.S., Canada, England, and Japan, and drives the company to become customer-centric and operationally flexible.

John Wiley & Sons publishes the book, Patent Searching Tools and Techniques, the most popular treatise on patent searching, which is written by David Hunt and other patent search experts.

Jonathan Skovholt joins the company to professionalize learning and development activities, establish an internal resource desk to handle the most difficult patent information resource requests, and contribute significantly to the development of Intellogist. He becomes widely respected among patent information scientists worldwide. Jonathan teaches Art & Science of Patent Searching for over 10 years.

Under the direction of Hunt, Buehler, Klekman, Cook, Skovholt and others, Landon IP opens operating offices in London, Tokyo, Shanghai, and New Delhi (Gurgaon). They implement widely followed business methods that create the modern patent search firm.

After extensive study in the business applications of artificial intelligence, Hunt, Buehler, Klekman, Cook, and Skovholt create Ensemble IP. They launch a mission to employ the most innovative approaches to the art and science of patent searching. They write an important paper, The Coming Revolution in Professional Patent Searching, that promises real innovation in the quest for the complete patent search. Ensemble IP begins execution on the best approaches to delivering real innovation in the patent search field.