<p>As the post said, if you are aiming at patent litigation, a technical degree is not required but one, even a bachelor's degree, is often helpful.</p>
<p>So I am assuming that you are asking about patent prosecution, either in a law firm or a corporation. There, to qualify as a patent attorney, the USPTO website lists the exact requirements, which for the most part include either at least a bachelor's degree or a heavy concentration in certain sciences.</p>
<p>Before proceeding further, however, I need to issue the following caveat [legalese for "warning"]:</p>
<p>The comments that follow are my thoughts as of today. However, by the time the OP graduates college, let alone law school, the "facts on the ground", as it were, can have changed.</p>
<p>To be competitive depends on which technical field and sometimes which geographical area. The following represents my experience in the San Francisco Bay area, which is, as you would expect, a very desirable and thus competitive geographical area for patent attorneys. In other parts of the country, for example in smaller cities or some states, the competitiveness and thus the requirements can be less. Massguy is correct to a certain extent that a Ph.D. may not be necessary to understand much technology and to work on patent applications in it. The problem in desirable geographical areas is that many candidates may have Ph.D.s, so employers are likely to hire them over B.S/M.S. degreed candidates, whether or not a Ph.D. degree is actually "needed" to do the work.</p>
<p>So, in highly desirable areas, say San Francisco Bay, New York, Washington D.C., Austin, Texas, maybe Boston, maybe Philadelphia, maybe L.A., maybe Minneapolis, probably Seattle:</p>
<p>biotechnology or biology: you will need at least an M.S. to be reasonably competitive and many candidates will have Ph.D. degrees, sometimes with considerable academic or industrial research experience. If you have an M.S., work experience can help level the playing field.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in my opinion a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies, particularly small ones, believe that only a patent attorney with a Ph.D. can effectively interact with, and gain the respect of, their researchers. I don't believe that this is true, but many of them do, which is the governing factor.</p>
<p>Note, however, that the fact that one doesn't have a Ph.D. doesn't mean that one won't be able to get a job as a patent attorney. Such a person may be attractive to an employer with a smaller salary budget or in a location, or working in a technology, that's not as "hot" or as popular, as some others.</p>
<p>Electrical engineering/CS. Most candidates I have seen do not have a Ph.D., only some have an M.S. Again, some have work experience. So a B.S. may be fine.</p>
<p>Other engineering: likewise, in most engineering fields a B.S. (not a B.A.) is competitive and quite adequate to handle technology. This is particularly true in recently developing fields such as biomedical engineering, where there are very few Ph.D.s in general.</p>
<p>Physics: Physics degrees can serve as a basis for working in various fields. However, in most cases you would need at least an M.S. to have wide or deep enough exposure to technology to function well as a patent attorney, in my opinion</p>
<p>Chemistry: A B.S. used to be sufficient and may still be but nowadays in industry a B.S. may only be good enough to give you a high level technician's job; so for patent work an M.S. might be the minimum needed competitively. Again, it depends on the geographical area and the specific chemical technology, and a number of candidates have Ph.D. degrees.</p>
<p>And just for the record</p>
<p>Nanotechnology: this is not a specific field. It includes a number of technical fields, some of which are more engineering-oriented, others of which are more physics- or chemistry-oriented. So look at the comments for those fields for needs in nanotech.</p>