<p>Just out of curiosity, what is patent law anyway? Is it the same as "intellectual property"? And most importantly, what do people generally major in to become a patent lawyer?</p>
<p>Patent law is part of IP. There are two major areas to Patent Law. One is patent prosecution which is the writing and application to get a patent from the USPTO. In order to do patent prosecution you need to take and pass the patent bar, and in order to take the patent bar you must have a certain educational background (e.g. science major in college). For details you can type in patent bar exam to see what backgrounds are accepted. The second area is patent litigation, which is basically when someone infringes on a patent and they are sued. Patent litigation is federal court jurisdiction which means that these cases are not heard in state courts. Up until about 10 years ago Patent was a cottage type field with specialty firms, but now it has exploded and every major firm does patent (mainly because it pays well). </p>
<p>Other areas of IP are copyright and trademark.</p>
<p>Do you have to declare that you wish to concentrate in patent law when applying to law school, or is this assummed if they see an applicant with a hard science, or engineering degree? The only reason I ask, is that I'm currently majoring in engineering, however I wish to pursue corporate law once i'm done with undergrad, but from what I understand engineers get accepted into law schools largely due to the heavy demand for IP Lawyers. So in other words, would I be able to apply to law school's under the supposition that I'd be doing patent law, and later in fact specialize in corporate law?</p>
<p>You don't have to declare that you wish to concentrate in patent law, and it's not necessarily assumed.</p>
<p>I don't believe the demand for patent lawyers has much of an impact on law schools decide to admit engineers. Law schools don't seem to care that engineers are typically graded under tougher standards than those in other programs.</p>
<p>The good news for engineers who want to be patent lawyers is that their employment prospects depend less on where they went to law school than they do for other job candidates.</p>