"That will be useful in dealing with some of the legal issues," she continued. "Whether it fully resolves them, this is [something] we are going to have to keep working on for the foreseeable future."

Last week, a high-profile U.S. appeals court judge, Richard Posner, questioned the need for patents for some technologies. He recently one of the biggest issues in Apple's ongoing battle with Motorola, so his views carry some weight.

"You just have this proliferation of patents. It's a problem," he said in an with Reuters.

Asked to comment on his remarks, Blank said, "There is an evolution on what is patentable and what isn't. Obviously, that's going to continue."

Blank will spend part of Wednesday speaking to inventors and tinkerers at TechShop, a kind of geek's gym where a monthly membership buys access to a variety of complex electronic and mechanical machinery.