Undergraduate Major for Patent Law?

@dadofsam- I wish I had been reading your thread- I would have just pinned it back up for the OP! that’s a nice piece of work you did. @drakonus- the thread is [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/235271-overview-of-patent-and-intellectual-property-law.html#latest%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/235271-overview-of-patent-and-intellectual-property-law.html#latest]here[/url]

“The ONLY decision you have to make about majors in the next 6 months is whether you want to go to an Engineering school or the ‘main’ college or university. At many colleges and universities you can major in CS in the main college or university, not the Engineering school.”

Yes, many college do offer a CS major in the main college, but the colleges I’m looking into that do this will give different degrees (bachelor of arts vs bachelor of sciences), and from my research, a bachelor of sciences is more “valuable.” So, technically, it does matter what I choose to apply to, or at least to which college. I’m not sure if you grasped this fact, but as I said before, switching majors is far harder if it’s from one college to another than within one college.

Thanks for your help everyone; I think I’ll just ask the patent lawyer I’m meeting as it’ll be easier and more convenient and more clear to have all of my questions answered at once and in person. dadofsam’s thread was also helpful.

Patent prosecution is more about the underlying science or technology than anything else. I’m also not sure it will satisfy the English major lurking beneath. The writing is very technical. If you like chemistry, major in it. Chemistry is a fine choice for patent law. Most of the positions I work on for patent attorneys require advanced degrees, with many asking for PHD’s. Patent law is perhaps the only specialty for which the prestige of the underlying degrees can trump the law degree. You may want to consider patent litigation instead. Chemistry/biochem is a great background for that work too. As long as big pharma is fighting generics, there will be work.

Drakonus:

Chemistry and computer science are very different majors. Figure out which you would prefer; that will be more important than anything we can tell you. Pull out the course catalogs and major descriptions at the colleges you are looking at.

You can even apply to the engineering school at some universities but apply to liberal arts for CS or chemistry at other universities.

The one you are more interested in and enjoy more is the one to take. The workload for both is high, and you won’t be able to convince yourself to keep studying for your inorganic test that’s in three days when your friends are all out partying unless you really, really like it and want to do something related to this for the rest of your life.

Also, patent prosecution can be very field-specific, so if you do chem or CS and become a patent prosecutor, you’ll be doing chem or CS patents until you retire. If you don’t love it, that’s a recipe for disaster.

That gets me to my second piece of advice: America is a big country with a very heterogeneous legal market. You may have an idea of where, geographically, you want to work. Now, do a search of the big law firms and patent boutiques in that area and see what openings they have, and what the requirements are.

My concern is that you seem to think that being eligible for the patent bar and going to law school are really all that it takes to be a patent lawyer. But these days, many firms are hiring for specific specialties, and want advanced degrees in those specialties.

If you have an English degree and enough course hours in various chem courses to be eligible to take the patent bar, that won’t help you much if all of the hiring in your city is for electrical engineers or PhD chemists.

@ariesathena @cartera45
Thank you so much! Your advice is really helpful-- I will be applying to different colleges with different intended majors now.

My old buddy Ariesathena is on point on most of the points she makes but I have disagree on one of them.

Do not expect to be able to get a job in patent prosecution majoring in English and taking enough chemistry or other science courses to qualify for the PTO examination.

Although that might qualify you for the exam, your lack of a degree in science will eliminate you as a competitor for any reasonable job in the field. All other applicants will have bachelor’s degree in that science, or better. In chemistry or engineering, a bachelor’s degree is not really sufficient; in computer science it might be enough now but might not be enough when you graduate in five or six years.

And we still don’t have a real clue as to why you are interested in becoming a patent attorney in the first place.

I echo everyone sentiments about WHY you want to be a patent attorney or even why you want to
be an attorney at all. Definitely work in a law firm while in college, you will either love it or hate it.

For law school you MUST have very high grades and LSATs and the Law School you attend matters much more than it does for Medical. Law schools will not cut you slack for getting Bs in lab courses.

I cannot answer your question about what is needed for the patent bar although you have gotten some good advice. Four year seems to be a long time to study something you dislike and you admit your grades in STEM are not as excellent as the ones in humanities, will this happen in college as well? Plus do you really want to read all that dry math and science (as you phrase it) for the rest of your life?

I think your thinking on lab courses is similar to how PreMed works, you only need a certain number of specific classes to apply to Medical School. I think what people are telling you is that this is not the same for the patent bar, that the more expert in a particular scientific area the better and that certain regions also have more need for particular types of patent law expertise so if your region does not have a lot of chemical companies, that is not going to be an expertise that will be desired by patent firms in your area.

Having gone through the college application process with a STEM kid, I do think you have a very slight advantage as a female in STEM although if you are applying to UCs you do have to look at which majors are impacted (I am not from CA so no specific information). You have to have excellent grades in STEM, and demonstrated interest. You would probably be better off doing research rather than shadowing a lawyer or perhaps both. Yes you have to choose if you want to apply engineering however, if you want to apply as a Chem, Physics or Math major those are usually in liberal arts so no choice needed. Those would still be considered STEM majors and colleges DO in some cases consider what your prospective major is, especially if you can show interest, eg did a Chemistry Intel project, interned with a Chemistry professor. Just putting down Chemistry major and all your ECs are journalism is not going to work. Colleges know you can and will change your major but if they do not have enough Chemistry majors (look at the number of professors, how many they have graduated of that major each year for the past 5 years, how many current majors, do some research), they may take a chance on your expressed interest. If you express interest in being a History major they KNOW you are not majoring in Chem!

There is something said half seriously about white females from New Jersey interested in Humanities (English, Social Science) as having the worst odds in the college admission process. While I doubt you are from New Jersey, take that for what you will.

Thank you so much; I’ll definitely look into this after meeting with the patent lawyer.

The thing is everything I do is pretty well-balanced actually (as in the courses I take), just grades mainly.

@dadofsam, Are you saying that at this time that one must get BS and MS in engineering for patent law

vannurseprac: yes, in order to qualify to take the exam you must have either a major in a science or engineering subject or have taken a certain number of courses in that subject.
However, and I need to emphasize this, all jobs in this field are subject to heavy competition, and it is a mistake to try to compete for those jobs with only the bare minimum of requirements. In other words, yes, you can become a patent attorney if you pass the exam and have a B.S. in biochemistry, for example, but you will not get a job as a patent attorney in that field if you only have a B.S. Other applicants will have advanced degrees and even post-doc experience. Right now a B.S. in engineering is sufficient to compete for a job in that field, but who can say how long that will be the case?

SeekingPam- you will need to start right away if you want to major in chemistry or physics, or be in school additional years if you decide to take those majors later.

Thank you @dadofsam

Hello everybody, sorry to revive this post but I have a question about Option B:
"40 semester hours in a combination consisting of the following:

8 semester hours of chemistry or 8 semester hours of physics, and
32 semester hours of chemistry, physics, biology, botany, microbiology, molecular biology, or engineering.
The 8 semester hours of chemistry or 8 semester hours of physics must be obtained in two sequential semesters, each semester including a lab. Only courses for science or engineering majors will be accepted. All acceptable coursework must be for science or engineering majors."

Does anybody know if most CS classes count towards engineering classes?

Thanks in advance.

It’s not letting me edit my comment, but I found the answer to my question:

“Other Acceptable Course Work: Under Option 4, up to four semester hours will be
accepted for courses in design engineering or drafting. Also, under Option 4, computer
science courses that stress theoretical foundations, analysis, and design, and include
substantial laboratory work, including software development will be accepted. Such
courses include the representation and transformation of information structures, the
theoretical models for such representations and transformations, basic coverage of algorithms, data structures, software design with a laboratory, programming languages
with a laboratory, and computer organization and architecture. Other acceptable courses
in computer science include artificial intelligence and robotics, networking, linear circuits,
logic circuits, operating systems, and software methodology and engineering. However,
the courses may not be substituted for the eight semester hours of chemistry or physics
required under Option 4.”