Jane Bu joined Via Licensing 11 years ago and served as General Counsel before being promoted to Chief Licensing Officer after the company merged with MPEG LA in May 2023.
Taking on the role was one of the “best decisions I ever made”, she tells ip fray in an exclusive interview. As well as allowing her to connect with the pool administrator’s licensees, the position has forced her to see licensing from a non-legal perspective.
“It has nothing to do with what the courts are saying – it’s about what licensors and licensees are saying – and it allows you to make personal and business connections that could never be made as General Counsel,” she says.
Ms. Bu set herself big goals when first appointed Chief Licensing Officer, including strengthening the pool’s programs, increasing its revenues, and bringing more licensees and licensors.
“We are certainly getting there,” she says. And, as part of those efforts, Via LA’s Chief Licensing Officer moved from her home in San Francisco to Shanghai in June to be closer to existing and potential partners in China. Speaking from her temporary base in the bustling Chinese metropolis (where she will be until mid-August), Ms. Bu tells ip fray that her move has helped her in several ways:
- Become closer to the Shanghai team (headed up by Tony Gan). The entire licensing team is globally located, and I want them to feel my presence.
- Strike important deals and make enhancements to programs. Being here has been very productive and efficient and our management is very pleased with all the work we’ve done this summer.
- Strengthen relationships and business with those in other areas of Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, which are much easier to reach from China than the U.S.
Via LA’s focus on China is not new. The company has been working on strengthening its business there for some time now, including through its Business Summit in Shanghai in March, when it announced Huawei would be joining its HEVC/VVC patent pool as both a VVC licensor and licensee (March 20, 2025 ip fray article).
There are two key reasons that Ms. Bu felt the need to move out to China (other than to eat dumplings every day):
- China’s paramount central position in global patent licensing: “Whether it is a licensee or a licensor now, you can’t argue with the fact that it’s become such a central player – in terms of revenue it’s also the most important geography for Via LA. And we don’t want to just be a virtual bridge; we want to be a physical bridge. We actually want to be here. Many other companies or licensors are hesitant to have a physical presence in China but it raises the question for me: how do you build a genuine relationship and trust when I am too afraid to come to you, or I just come for 24 hours and leave? I want to be here to build friendships and relationships. I want people to call me when they need to talk to me.”
- Proving Via LA’s sincerity: “I gave up the cool San Francisco weather (20C) to come here (where it is 40C some days). If that doesn’t show I like you, that I want to be in business, my sincerity and Via’s sincerity, then I don’t know what else shows it. I am the global licensing officer and I chose to be here a whole three months. It’s a statement. It’s a: ‘Hey, I am here, do you want to go out? Let’s talk any time.’”
Highlights and successful leadership
Prior to joining Via, Ms. Bu held several in-house and private practice roles, including research associate at Neurocrine Biosciences from 2000 to 2002, IP associate at McDermott Will and Emery and Ropes & Gray between 2005 and 2010, senior associate at Alston & Bird LLP from 2010 to 2012, and principal attorney at her own in-house legal consulting firm between 2012 and 2014.
Over the past quarter-century, Ms. Bu has celebrated many wins. Some of her biggest highlights include:
- Building a bridge between people: “If I were to walk on the street, I would never meet you, or the head of IP at a Chinese company, or a major licensor. In our event in Shanghai, we were all looking at one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with people I would never have met. We might not always agree on any of the positions, and we might not end up doing a deal together, but we enjoy the company and moments we get to spend together. And that is the beauty of the SEP licensing industry.”
- Growing Via LA’s pools: “I can see our revenue growing, which means the amount of value we have achieved, and the amount of commercialization we have achieved for our licensors, is incredible. Everything has doubled within the time that I have been on the team and that is very rewarding.”
- Allowing her “true colors” to shine through: “Beyond bold fashion choices, my greatest achievement is my comfort in expressing my true self, regardless of the environment. I hope others on their career paths find that same spark of authenticity and confidence.”
Over the course of her career, Ms. Bu has also cultivated a strong idea of what “successful” leadership looks like. She feels that there are two main attributes that contribute to a good leader:
- Aligning your people: “If I cannot position my team’s personal growth trajectory or create an environment where they can grow the way they want, they are not going to contribute to the company’s growth. The company’s trajectory is the most important, but if I don’t align their expectations and what they want from the job, no one is going to do a good job. I put a lot of emphasis on your value.”
- Bringing in skillsets from different ways of thinking: “If you bring in cookie-cutters where everyone comes from the same exact experience, or skillset or thinking, it’s not going to create creative or unique solutions. One of Via LA’s pillars is to always be relevant to the market: have creative and innovative licensing solutions to address current market needs.”
Believe the outcome
In an interview last year, Ms. Bu shared her experience as a woman early on in IP:
“When I proposed a (what I believe to be) ‘out of the box’ idea to try something else, I was often told (politely) that it was ‘too cute’, ‘too naive’, ‘too optimistic’, or ‘too positive’. I still struggle to see how some of those things can be negative in any way. Luckily, no one ever said I was not ‘intelligent’ in those situations. Precisely, many capable women were recognised for their intelligence and drive, but what made them always the second choice was the lack of experience or their less likeable ‘aggressiveness’ (which would be viewed as ambition for their male counterparts).”
She tells ip fray that she was lucky enough to always be supported, with mentors that elevated her and saw her potential. “Sometimes the difference between success and failure is opportunity given or not given,” she says.
But her success was also thanks to the way she challenged people’s views of “positive” and “cuteness” being a “bad thing”. Believing the outcome, and believing the other side will do what they need to do to meet where you are, shouldn’t be bad, Ms. Bu says.
“So,” she adds, “I tell the up-and-coming generation to challenge and question the ‘nos’: don’t take positive or cute as a bad thing, don’t doubt yourself and don’t let other people’s voices doubt you, and pursue that and don’t back down.”
Looking to the future, Ms. Bu says she hopes to have personally gained more competencies, efficiencies, and a better knowledge base, whether that’s in licensing, or a new language, or a new philosophy. She prides herself on learning something new every single day.
This enhances her ability to have conversations with everyone she meets, including prospective partners:
“We can establish genuine connections on things we might be interested in.”
Ms. Bu is also eager to see Via LA’s programs get more penetration, revenue, and licensee and licensor participation. She hopes that all its programs will get to the same level as AVC and AAC, which have become the pool administrator’s most lucrative and worldwide market-accepted programs.