Tahoe Silicon Mountain in Truckee next week will host Dick Schulze; his talk is titled Fame, Fortune, and Exploitation: The Fascinating History of Patents and Patent Trolls.

Schulze, with Holland & Hart’s Intellectual Property Group, has experience in all aspects of high-tech patenting. He was a supervising attorney for 20 years in the corporate legal departments of Hewlett-Packard and its successor Agilent Technologies.

For at least as long as there has been a Patent Office, there have been inventors who seek to exploit their patents to maximum advantage. This talk will examine the history of how patents have shaped modern technology — and brought fame and fortune to their owners — and how people can apply these lessons to new ventures in the future.

The March 13 talk from 6-8pm is free. Pizza and salad will be available for $5.