<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>I’m thinking about pursuing a degree in EE or ECE, and was thinking about a job as a patent lawyer. I saw the “overview of IP and patent law” post, but I wasn’t necessarily able to understand what they do. Do they just prosecute people who misuse a patent or something? Also, I was wondering about a couple more things:</p>
<li><p>Patent law is considered to be the field in law for science geeks like me, but I dont really see why knowledge of technology and such is needed in this field. Anyone care to explain why?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you have to go to a HYSC type school in order to get a good job in patent law, or is something in the T25-T50 (huge range, I know) generally good enough? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>sorry, thats a lot of questions, but I’m really confused about this field and would really appreciate the help</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Patent lawyers primarily do two things: write/"prosecute" patent applications ("prosecute" means negotiating with the patent office to get an issued patent), and sue companies and people who violate patent rights (this is called "litigation"). Most patent lawyers tend to lean toward either patent prosecution or patent litigation. If you look at a patent (you can find them at <a href="http://www.uspto.gov%5B/url%5D">www.uspto.gov</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/patents%5B/url%5D">www.google.com/patents</a>, for starters), you'll see a detailed technical description of an invention and then a "claims" section, which is the legal description of the invention. Being able to write this stuff requires a good understanding of technology, which is why the science/engineering degree is critical. You can't write a good patent application without understanding the invention you're writing about!</p>
<p>Just from what I've seen, you do NOT need to go to a HYSC school to get a good job in patent law. Some schools, like George Washington University and John Marshall, have well-respected patent law programs. Of course, going to a top-ranked school opens up more options, so it's still a good idea to go to one if you can.</p>
<p>I hope this helps!</p>
<p>hmmmm thats groovegirl. But can anyone tell me who they think will like patent law, because I still can't tell from your description whether or not I would like it (not that it was bad, just that I can't figure out whether or not I would like it).</p>
<p>California: In my opinion it's probably not possible - or a good idea - to try to tell at this time whether or not you will like patent law. First you would have to decide whether or not you like EE or ECE enough to major in it (you need a degree in an engineering or other scientific subject in order to understand technology that you are trying to patent for a client). </p>
<p>My advice to all prospective engineering majors is to enroll in an engineering program only if you want to be an engineer; otherwise you will spend four hard years working at learning material that you will dislike. (Also, many engineering students change majors in college to other subjects).</p>
<p>As an engineer, you likely would work at developing new products or improving existing ones. As a patent lawyer you would not be carrying out any engineering, but only writing about it it in patent applications and in communications with the patent offices. So one distinction is between doing and writing about doing.</p>
<p>hey dadofsam:</p>
<p>thanks for the response. Thats kinda what I was looking for. But can I just clarify something with you? First of all, I can say that right now, I would enjoy EE enough to major in it. I've always liked working with computers and I enjoy doing math/physics. Obviously this can change in college, but no, I'm not just majoring in this for the heck of it. Secondly, I was wondering if this would be adequate in defining what a patent lawyer does when he/she writes about patent applications:</p>
<p>Is it kind of like writing an informative paper in that you have to understand the technology, why its unique, etc? </p>
<p>Also, I was wondering if people find the work tedius, because just writing applications all day seems kind of boring</p>
<p>Let me know...thanks!</p>
<p>California: it's not that tedious at all. If you do patent prosecution you get to work with and/or communicate with inventors or others about what the invention is, how to define and describe it, how to protect it. You engage in communications with the US and foreign patent offices about how the invention differs from previous knowledge in patents or publications and why they should grant a patent on it. You usually will be involved in evaluating patents of others to see whether or not your inventor's work will infringe on those other patents. You may or may not be involved with patent litigation. If you are working in a company you also may be involved with confidential procedures for keeping developments secret from your competitors and possibly with other intellectual property related matters (see my pinned post for an overview). But you won't be doing any actual engineering; that is the main difference.</p>
<p>thanks again dadofsam...but I'm afraid I have a couple more questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I was also thinking of possibly doing a materials engineering or a mechanical engineering degree, with specializations in sports equipment or Aerospace field respectively. Is it possible, and feasible in terms of job demand, etc. to do patent law in these fields?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you necessarily have to go to a T14 school to get a good job in patent law, or can you go to a T50 and still do well? Groovegirl gave me her opinion, but I was wondering if you could confirm or deny this.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>thanks again man, I really appreciate you bearing with me.</p>
<p>California: As I stated in my previous post, you are thinking too soon about getting into patent law. First you need to get through the four years of college and see whether you stick with enginering. Not all freshman engineering students wind up majoring in it. Then you need to think about whether or not you want to go to law school. A lot of people do not do that right after college, especially science and engineering majors. Some first go to graduate school, others get jobs in their field.</p>
<p>Second, if you read my main thread, you'll see my comments that it's not possible to predict the job market for patent attorneys in a specific field seven or eight years ahead of time. Any of those degrees can be suitable for patent law. What you need to be able to do is to use your technical education to work in patenting technology that is not specifically what you majored in - and that might not even have existed when you began college. The example that I give is that a few years ago there was a belief that mechanical engineers would have a difficult time finding patent attorney jobs because the amount of patents on machinery had been decreasing. However, at about that time, there began to become important developments in prosthetics and other medical devices. Guess whose skills were needed for patent work on them?</p>
<p>alright, no more qs about that kind of stuff, and I'm not sure if you answered it in the previous posts, but since I will probably be doing some engineering degree if I go down this road, my GPA will probably be lower as well. This will put me at GREAT disadvantage at the T14 law schools, so I'm still wondering if you have to go to an amazing school like that in order to do patent law?</p>
<p>California. You should read the complete thread of my pinned post, where this question is aswered, at least in my opinion.
The answer is "no", you don't have to attend a T14 school to get a job as a patent attorney. However, to be competitive with other graduates, you should attend a fairly good to pretty good school, at least, whether it be a T14 school or a good school in the region where you would like to practice law. In another scenario, if you are working as an engineer and your employer is willing to help pay for you to go to law school, you would most likley be attending school in the evening, and only certain schools (and probably none of the T14 ones) offer evening or part-time programs - in which case your choice of schools is limited but your chances of employment as a patent attorney are prearranged.</p>
<p>In any case, whether in college or in law school, you should aim to get the best GPA you can, for all sorts of reasons.</p>