Patent law - career question

[skier]

Does anyone here work in patent law? I’m interested in learning a bit more about the field.

I’m an engineer working at a large corporation in the aerospace industry. A former coworker mentioned the patent bar to me a few years back and I haven’t been able to get the idea of taking it out of my head.

I’m looking for feedback/thoughts on becoming a patent agent with no plans to go to law school.

 

[bradg33]

As I understand it, it's a fairly niche practice area. My firm has ~900 lawyers and a decent sized intellectual property group. Looks like we employ 6 patent agents in total. And I'll note that, very generally, in law firms non-attorney positions are usually somewhat less secure than attorney positions.

 

[NoHeat]

Besides law firms and companies, universities are possible employers. The one in my town has a handful of “licensing associates,” who are not lawyers; most have PhDs; some have previous experience with inventions.

 

[Half Fast]

I'm also an engineer and I retired from a large aerospace corporation in 2021. I looked into becoming a patent agent some years ago and decided against it. You may decide differently, of course, but here's a bit of what I learned.

I saw three options for working as a patent agent. I could (1) remain with my company and do patent work for them, perhaps in addition to my engineering job, OR (2) I could stay in my engineering job and do patent law as a side hustle, OR (3) I could quit my job and look for full-time patent work. Evaluating these three options, I found...

(1) My company did little or no patent work internally. We farmed it out to external law firms, picking ones with the appropriate expertise for the particular case. My sector of the corporation had over 7,000 engineers and fewer than 10 attorneys, who mostly selected and managed the law firms we hired. There would be virtually no opportunity to work in patent law inside my company.

(2) Practicing patent law as a side hustle would require me to to find and engage my own clients, and given the business hours of likely clients and the PTO it would not be possible to do the job at night and on weekends, and it didn't appear to be something I could do only a few hours a week anyway. In addition, there would always be concerns about conflicts of interest, since I would be reviewing new technology and some of it might have applications to my aerospace company, and things I did in my regular engineering job might bear upon the work of clients. Finally, being a one-man-show in a technology field is very tough, as I would not have personal expertise in the specialties of many of my clients. This would either limit my effectiveness or limit my client selection, or I would have to engage consultants from time to time.

(3) Finding a full-time patent agent gig at a legal firm appeared to be the most practical, much more so than just striking out on my own. But at least at the time I looked into it, job opportunities were few compared to those for engineers. (This could be different now, but I haven't investigated recently.) Furthermore, leaving an engineering job where I was highly experienced and valued to take an entry-level patent job would have cut my salary in half. Experienced patent agents can make decent money, but experienced engineers can make decenter.​

So for me it didn't make much sense, and I wasn't really interested in doing patent work full-time anyway. I've always been in love with engineering and didn't particularly want to spend all of my working life creating patents for other people's inventions.

Your viewpoint may be different, of course, and if you're in love with the idea of practicing patent law by all means go for it. If you love what you do, there's a better chance you'll do it very well and succeed.

Just some thoughts on the matter, as you requested.

 

[Initial Fix]

Some good friends are patent attorneys, and now senior partners in a firm. They enjoy it. But whenever we go on vacation, they always have work to do.

 

[Half Fast]

They’re often confused, but there’s a difference between a patent attorney and a patent agent. Agents can practice patent law before the PTO but not before a regular court. Agents do not have law degrees and are not attorneys.

 

[mandm]

It’s easy to get into, take the patent agent registration exam or whatever it is called, and once you pass you are a patent agent. You can be your own one man band or work for someone else. There may be a number of patent agent job posts online but those firms will give priority to patent lawyers (with a law degree) first and have patent agents as a backup. You’ll likely be the first to go when the economy goes to crap. As a one man band you’ll be subject to the timeline of the PTO, takes years to get responses to your applications. I imagine a lot of ideas go to the PTO to die in the waiting period and political atmosphere of the PTO. If you are serious about patent law, go to law school and get the degree. You can therefore cover a few legal practice areas and have enough work to keep employed.

 

[Pinecone]

A friend of mine from college started as a engineer with Pratt and Whitney. He got a law degree. And ended up as a patent attourney.

Retired nicely at a reasonable age. And had enough to retire to Hawaii.

 

[SCCutler]

Guy I know was a plumber, then classmate in law school. Did some patent-related legal work.

He flies around in a Global Express, now.

 

[Lindberg]

Does anyone here work in patent law? I’m interested in learning a bit more about the field.

I’m an engineer working at a large corporation in the aerospace industry. A former coworker mentioned the patent bar to me a few years back and I haven’t been able to get the idea of taking it out of my head.

I’m looking for feedback/thoughts on becoming a patent agent with no plans to go to law school.

Every patent agent I know personally eventually went to law school. You don't have to though, and if all you want to do is prosecute patents and maybe do litigation support, you can have an entire career as a patent agent. I don't know about your company, but there are many large engineering and tech companies that employ scores of patent agents. Back in the day, they'd pay for the training and maybe even pay for engineers to go to law school if they'd agree to stay in house. I don't know how many still do that.

As I understand it, it's a fairly niche practice area. My firm has ~900 lawyers and a decent sized intellectual property group. Looks like we employ 6 patent agents in total. And I'll note that, very generally, in law firms non-attorney positions are usually somewhat less secure than attorney positions.

You can't really generalize from that experience. Patent prosecution isn't really suited for many large, full-service firms, even those with IP practices. It's generally pretty commoditized and big firms are too expensive. Patent agents are very common at large and small specialized firms though.

 

[skier]

Every patent agent I know personally eventually went to law school.

I don't know about your company, but there are many large engineering and tech companies that employ scores of patent agents. Back in the day, they'd pay for the training and maybe even pay for engineers to go to law school if they'd agree to stay in house. I don't know how many still do that.

That aligns with what I’ve read.

My company has at least a couple patent agents in-house. There may be more, but that is just what I found quickly searching our intranet.

We do also have an education reimbursement program but everyone that I know that does it works full time while doing it and our local law school only has full time options.

 

[Lindberg]

We do also have an education reimbursement program but everyone that I knows works full time while doing it and our local law school only has full time options.

There was a time when companies like TI gave engineers a paid sabbatical to attend law school in exchange for a commitment afterwards. I doubt that's still a common thing, if it exists anywhere.

 

[GaryM]

There was a time when companies like TI gave engineers a paid sabbatical to attend law school in exchange for a commitment afterwards. I doubt that's still a common thing, if it exists anywhere.

During my R&D days, one of our chemists wanted to go to law school to become a patent attorney. We filed a lot of patents, so the company agreed our educational assistance program would cover it. Off she went, completed law school, and resigned the day she passed the bar. She had a much more lucrative position already lined up. And my company realized the way the educational assistance program was structured, there was no clawback clause or requirement to stay with the company for some length of time.

That got fixed pretty quickly, but it was an expensive mistake.

Anyway, I had occasion to work with a handful of chemists-turned-patent agents over the years, and one or two patent attorneys. I was always impressed by the agent's ability to turn a stack of handwritten lab notebooks into a patent application, and almost without fail, into an issued patent.

Patent law always struck me as rather tedious work, extremely detail-oriented (like so much of practicing law is). But if you like the work, there is certainly a demand for it.

 

[Mark Dighton]

If you want more background info on becoming a Patent Agent, search YouTube for my series on videos of "Patent Careers for Engineers & Scientists." (I'd put a link here, but as a new and probably one-time user, I'm not allowed.) Or write me at mdighton@pli.edu, if you want me to send you a link. That series talks about what the work is like, and what the Exam is like. I can't comment on opportunities in particular cases, but I hope the general info will help. (Only one of the five videos is geared towards people who want to go on to law school. The majority assume that you're "just" interested in being a Patent Agent.)
Mark Dighton, Admin. Director, Patent Office Exam Course, PLI (mdighton@pli.edu).

 

[mandm]

During my R&D days, one of our chemists wanted to go to law school to become a patent attorney. We filed a lot of patents, so the company agreed our educational assistance program would cover it. Off she went, completed law school, and resigned the day she passed the bar. She had a much more lucrative position already lined up. And my company realized the way the educational assistance program was structured, there was no clawback clause or requirement to stay with the company for some length of time.

That got fixed pretty quickly, but it was an expensive mistake.

Anyway, I had occasion to work with a handful of chemists-turned-patent agents over the years, and one or two patent attorneys. I was always impressed by the agent's ability to turn a stack of handwritten lab notebooks into a patent application, and almost without fail, into an issued patent.

Patent law always struck me as rather tedious work, extremely detail-oriented (like so much of practicing law is). But if you like the work, there is certainly a demand for it.

Anyone can obtain a patent, the value of it depends on the written claims. You can be overly narrow (less coverage) or more broad (more coverage). Patents and their claim language are interpreted very broadly.

 

[skier]

If you want more background info on becoming a Patent Agent, search YouTube for my series on videos of "Patent Careers for Engineers & Scientists." (I'd put a link here, but as a new and probably one-time user, I'm not allowed.) Or write me at mdighton@pli.edu, if you want me to send you a link. That series talks about what the work is like, and what the Exam is like. I can't comment on opportunities in particular cases, but I hope the general info will help. (Only one of the five videos is geared towards people who want to go on to law school. The majority assume that you're "just" interested in being a Patent Agent.)
Mark Dighton, Admin. Director, Patent Office Exam Course, PLI (mdighton@pli.edu).

Thanks for joining and posting. PLI certainly has a presence and is what I’ve found recommended over and over for learning the material.

The YouTube videos were helpful. Here’s a link to the first one for anyone else that’s interested.