<p>My dream is to be a patent attorney and I am wondering what major would be best in terms of law school admissions and job opportunities. </p>
<p>I have seen the USPTO bulletin with the list of acceptable majors. There were a lot of subjects, including subjects that I thought were not acceptable.</p>
<p>Is physics also great for patent law? I think since physics is the basis for many types of engineering there would be many opportunities for patent attorneys with bachelor's degree in physics. How about biology?</p>
<p>I've heard from more than one source that electrical engineering and biology/biological engineering majors are the most sought after by employers. </p>
<p>What do you think are the good majors for becoming a patent attorney, considering the difficulty of getting a good GPA and future salary?</p>
<p>I've heard that EE is the best, and that MechE is also good. Physics is supposed to be fine too. I don't think biology would be the best, but people have apparently done it.</p>
<p>I'm considering patent law, and I'm a mechE major. However, my future is completely up in the air. I'm making sure that I get the pre reqs done so that in 3 years, I can choose to go onto Law, Med, or Business, or anything else.</p>
<p>Please read earlier threads on this same subject. Note that it's rare that any single individual has both an interest and aptitude in both electrical engineering and biology. Furthermore, it's probably impossible to major in both in college due to the difficulty of the courses and the number of lab hours required in biology.</p>
<p>You should major in the subject that interests you and in which you can get the best grades, especially if you want to go to law school. There are and will be opportunities for patent attorneys in all technical fields. By the time you graduate law school, in 7 or 8 years, the markets will look different than they do today.</p>
<p>Physics majors score really high on the LSATs and Physics is more interesting than Bio. If i wanted to go into Patent law I'd probably major in physics</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you don't NEED to be eligible for practice in front of the USPTO in order to be a patent lawyer. There are patent lawyers out there that do not have a technical degree. In fact, I wrote some posts in the past (which you can search for) in which I found some successful patent lawyers that nevertheless do not have a technical degree (i.e. I found people whose undergrad degrees were in political science, history, etc.) </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I think having a technical degree is certainly helpful if you want to be a patent lawyer. But that has to be weighed against the lower grades you will probably get in a technical major, which will probably impact the quality of law school you will get into (and on the margins, may impact whether you can get into any law school at all).</p>
<p>You must be registered to practice beore the USPTO in order to call yourself a patent attorney. To become registered, that is, to qualify to take the examination for registration, you must have either an undergraduate degree in a specified science or meet certain other requirements set by the USPTO concerning knowledge in science or engineering. See the link I posted yesterday for details.</p>
<p>There are attorneys who litigate patent cases who are not registered to practice before the USPTO, but they cannot and do not call themselves "patent attorneys".</p>
<p>I agree that you need to register yourself with the USPTO to officially call yourself a 'patent attorney'. </p>
<p>However, I would just point out that plenty of people are able to register themselves without having a technical undergrad degree.</p>
<p>Consider Vladimir Khodosh at Barnes & Thornburgh, one of the more prominent IP firms in the world. He is registered with the USPTO. Yet his undergrad degree is in polisci. David Brezina and Spencer Patrick Goodson also do not hold technical undergrad degrees, yet too are registered before the USPTO.</p>
<p>In fact, I might actually consider that to be part of a 'brilliant' strategy. The fact is, technical majors are graded harder than nontechnical majors and if you want to go to law school, you need to maximize your GPA, which often times (sadly) means avoiding difficult classes. Yet according to the USPTO rules, all you need to do is complete a certain number of science units. You can complete them anywhere, including an easy community college. Or you can take these classes in your final college year such that your grades will come back AFTER you have already applied to law school (hence whatever grades you get will have no impact on your admission because the law school adcom will never see them).</p>
<p>Most patent attorneys and patent agents have engineering or science degrees; such degrees are the most common qualifying route to the Patent Bar. However, you can also qualify for the Patent Bar by taking a specified number of acceptable engineering or science courses, regardless of your major, as noted above.</p>
<p>There is yet another way to qualify for the Patent Bar, without necessarily taking any college courses at all. You can qualify by passing the 8-hour Fundamentals of Engineering exam (formerly known as the Engineer-in-Training, or EIT, exam). This is a national licensing exam that is commonly taken by senior engineering students. Certain states have relatively loose entrance requirements for the FE exam, and will allow non-engineers to sit for it. There are lots of good study materials for the FE exam, and it is quite passable if you have a sophomore-level understanding of math, physics, chemistry, and computers. In some states, it is possible to qualify for the FE exam with a few years of work experience, even if you have never attended college.</p>
<p>Is the future of physics based patent law (for a physics major) just as good as that of biotechnology based, or is one more likely to generate success than the other?</p>
<p>I am from Maryland and have a BS in Physics from Towson University. Before I got my job in civil engineering I applied to law schools and recently got in where I wanted to go (University of Baltimore). I'm only considering working and getting an MS in engineering or getting my JD and doing patent law. I'm not quite sure what kind of opportunities are available in Baltimore for patent law and slightly worried because I didn't have a high undergrad gpa, although I did well on the LSAT. If anyone has any input or advise it's greatly appreciated. I am interested in both engineering and law so I'm leaning toward going to UB. Thanks.</p>
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Is the future of physics based patent law (for a physics major) just as good as that of biotechnology based, or is one more likely to generate success than the other?
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<p>I would suspect that most patents in the near future will be generated in the biotechnology sector or the information technology/computer science/electronics sector. Materials science may also become big if and when nanotechnology booms.</p>
<p>Since UB law school is an ABA-accredited school, your law school grades will be far more important than your undergrad GPA when it comes time to look for a position in patent law. What could be more important are the courses you took in physics and enginering and any work experience.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar with patent law opportunities specifically in Baltimore, but there ought to be some law firms, as well as patent deprtments in the local universities. Also, there are many opportunities in and around Washington D.C., in law firms, corporations, universities and government.</p>
<p>thanks. i started as an engineering major and transferred so i have material science, electronics, and other engineering coursework. i was on the applied track with my physics degree too.</p>
<p>Biophysics is what I am looking at, yet almost no school offers it as a major (the only top schools I can think of are JHU - which I don't want to apply to - and Brown - which has a 5 percent acceptance rate in my area, though Brandeis does, but I'm not sure if I'll want to go there). I know that many offer it as a concentration, but how would that look for patent law. Most schools seem to offer it as a grad program, but that's graduate study, so how would I be able to do law school?</p>