A Day in the Life of Spotify’s Head of Patents
Per Wendin has spent nearly three years as Spotify’s Head of Patents in Stockholm, part of a four-person IP team split between Sweden and New York. Despite its small size, the team carries a heavy responsibility: protecting the company’s technical assets and making sure engineers can keep innovating without giving away valuable work.
From Bike Ride to Patent Filings
Wendin’s day typically starts with a 12-kilometer bike commute, rain or shine. After arriving at the office around 8:00 AM, he dives into emails that have accumulated overnight from the US. While the team handles IP broadly—trademarks, trade secrets, and related concerns—Wendin’s focus is on patents for technical inventions.
Currently, he and his colleagues are seeing a wave of patent grants around running features and adaptive music that responds to pace and cadence. Though not yet in the Spotify app, the area is attracting attention as exercise gadgets grow in popularity. Podcasts and voice interaction are another hot topic, and the team recently filed a patent for Cuepoints, a feature that lets listeners crossfade between playlist tracks like a DJ.
Finding Ideas Worth Protecting
The discovery process starts with regular meetings with product managers, where teams give top-level overviews of their work. When something looks promising, Wendin follows up with deeper conversations with the specific team members involved. Together they decide whether an invention needs a patent or could be better classified as a trade secret, and if needed, they bring in a specialist attorney to draft and file the application.
Wendin describes the work as sitting somewhere between legal and engineering—a blend he finds particularly engaging.
Watching the Boards and Spreading the Word
After lunch—sometimes in the city, sometimes in the office cafeteria—Wendin keeps an eye on the company message board for new product and feature announcements. The aim is to catch developments early and ensure nothing slips through that might need legal protection.
But the team isn’t just reactive. A major focus right now is raising awareness of what the IP team does and encouraging engineers to approach them proactively. Wendin notes that engineers are typically transparent and community-minded, which makes education on knowledge-sharing best practices essential. “There are lots of very smart people here with very cool ideas,” he says. “And they need to know their work is valuable, not give it away too easily!”
Off the Clock
By 5:30 PM, Wendin is back on his bike for the ride home. Even after a long day, he usually finds time for more exercise—running, yoga, the gym, squash, or tennis. He also enjoys cooking and attends weekly wine tastings as a way to unwind and leave the workday behind.
