big firm patent associate contemplating life, taking Qs Forum

[chem]

For someone with a bio PhD wanting to go into patent pros and applying for a 2L SA (which, as you know, often leads to a post-grad offer), what would be the best type of 1L summer job for being most marketable to a biglaw IP firm? Obviously there are a lot of variables, but for patent pros, what order would you place these 1L summer jobs in in terms of most desirable for hiring as a 2L:
-patent examiner extern at USPTO
-SA at a law firm (non-IP work)
-SA at a law firm (IP work)
-research assistantship at the law school researching IP issues
-legal internship at a biotech/pharma/med device company (IP focus)

Thanks!

-SA at a law firm (IP work)
-SA at a law firm (non-IP work)
-patent examiner extern at USPTO (prosecution biglaw only, that rare creature it is anyway)


Whichever of the last two pays more
-research assistantship at the law school researching IP issues
-legal internship at a biotech/pharma/med device company (IP focus)

[Anonymous User]

For someone with a bio PhD wanting to go into patent pros and applying for a 2L SA (which, as you know, often leads to a post-grad offer), what would be the best type of 1L summer job for being most marketable to a biglaw IP firm? Obviously there are a lot of variables, but for patent pros, what order would you place these 1L summer jobs in in terms of most desirable for hiring as a 2L:
-patent examiner extern at USPTO
-SA at a law firm (non-IP work)
-SA at a law firm (IP work)
-research assistantship at the law school researching IP issues
-legal internship at a biotech/pharma/med device company (IP focus)

Thanks!

As a patent prosecutor (but not in bio), I would put it in the following order instead:

SA at a law firm (IP work)
patent examiner extern at USPTO tied with legal internship at a biotech/pharma/med device company (IP focus)
SA at a law firm (non-IP work)
research assistantship

If you wanted to go into litigation then I would reorder it.

[Anonymous User]

Current 1L w/ EE+PatBar. I'm working this summer in a V100's Patent Pros+Lit group.

Bidding right now for PLIP and OCI. How do I know which firms are "better than" my current firm? This seems incredibly hard to discern for IP practices. A lot of the Silicon Valley offices/firms are quite small, and a lot of them are not on the traditional "ranking" websites like Chambers.

By "better" I just mean giving you the most options lateraling down the road or whatever.

[Anonymous User]

Laid off from my IP boutique, just as I was finishing up my second year. I don't have the credentials for biglaw (I tried), and I'm not sure I want to be at a firm anymore anyways. Also don't have the experience to go in-house. Any creative routes I can go other than the stereotypical firm/in-house avenues? I've always wanted to get into music/media, but don't even know where to look (and don't know how helpful my IP background is).

Help?

[truevines]

Laid off from my IP boutique, just as I was finishing up my second year. I don't have the credentials for biglaw (I tried), and I'm not sure I want to be at a firm anymore anyways. Also don't have the experience to go in-house. Any creative routes I can go other than the stereotypical firm/in-house avenues? I've always wanted to get into music/media, but don't even know where to look (and don't know how helpful my IP background is).

Help?

We need more context and info re your backgrounds and credentials. Were you doing soft IP work, patent lit, or patent prosecution at your ex-firm? Any technical background? what kind of IP work have you done?

[mbison]

How much do IP groups or boutiques care about law review, relative to IP moot courts or clinics or stuff?

i dont think anyone cares about either. i mean, how much firms care would breakdown like this:

90% law school/grade
5% extracurriculars such as LR, moot court, clinic, etc.
5% prior work experience

Having worked at both a big firm and a boutique, I would say this is much more characteristic of the big firm. At my boutique, I would say more like

40% law school/grades
40% tech background & school(s)/grades
20% technical work experience

[Anonymous User]

Current 1L w/ EE+PatBar. I'm working this summer in a V100's Patent Pros+Lit group.

Bidding right now for PLIP and OCI. How do I know which firms are "better than" my current firm? This seems incredibly hard to discern for IP practices. A lot of the Silicon Valley offices/firms are quite small, and a lot of them are not on the traditional "ranking" websites like Chambers.

By "better" I just mean giving you the most options lateraling down the road or whatever.

I'm a Silicon Valley patent prosecutor at a boutique.

For patent pros, there aren't really "better firms" but better attorneys. None of the firm rankings are taken seriously. It's a very individualized profession.

However, I do think that working at a larger office/firm would give you more options because it can be more attractive to in-house people who aren't familiar with patent prosecution. Generally, the lower tech the company, the more the prestige matters. So, consumer software oriented companies would be easier to go to from a large firm. For the more high-tech companies, it doesn't really matter as much.

As for lateraling between firms, that's very easy within the Bay Area. Recruitment is very difficult right now. Everyone works on the same clients, so the work is all the same. You provide writing samples to the employer before they decide to interview you. The main difference is that some people are efficient and some are not. An efficient patent prosecutor will always be able to lateral, even for someone who basically works for a solo. Bay Area patent prosecution is a different universe than what you would generally read about the legal profession.

[mbison]

Second, are the exit options really that bad for non-technical backgrounds? I just looked at my firm's website, and about half of the associates in patent litigation have non-technical backgrounds. That's a lot of associates, are they all screwed without a tech background?

In general, anybody doing litigation is screwed for exit options, unless they get very lucky. The notion that patent litigation is significantly different from general litigation in this regard is just false. To the extent that exclusively patent litigation in-house jobs exist, having solid patent lit experience should qualify you regardless of technical background.

The main reason tech background matters is that you can sit for the patent bar and do prosecution, which is infinitely better for in-house options.

[Anonymous User]

Second, are the exit options really that bad for non-technical backgrounds? I just looked at my firm's website, and about half of the associates in patent litigation have non-technical backgrounds. That's a lot of associates, are they all screwed without a tech background?

In general, anybody doing litigation is screwed for exit options, unless they get very lucky. The notion that patent litigation is significantly different from general litigation in this regard is just false. To the extent that exclusively patent litigation in-house jobs exist, having solid patent lit experience should qualify you regardless of technical background.

The main reason tech background matters is that you can sit for the patent bar and do prosecution, which is infinitely better for in-house options.

Recently, I've noticed a lot of former litigators with technical backgrounds being hired for in-house positions where they manage prosecution. In my firm, it's created a lot of friction in terms of personalities and expectations, and some associates are internally "firing" the former litigators as clients.

[mbison]

As for lateraling between firms, that's very easy within the Bay Area. Recruitment is very difficult right now. Everyone works on the same clients, so the work is all the same. You provide writing samples to the employer before they decide to interview you. The main difference is that some people are efficient and some are not. An efficient patent prosecutor will always be able to lateral, even for someone who basically works for a solo. Bay Area patent prosecution is a different universe than what you would generally read about the legal profession.

The reason efficiency matters so much is that you are under a tight budget for prosecution. Inefficiency means you aren't making money, whereas litigation basically rewards inefficiency where everything is billed hourly. The reason efficiency is difficult in prosecution is that you have to be able to put your head down and grind through drab, mentally-taxing, technical writing all day every day alone in your office. It's not for everybody.

As somebody who has done a bunch of litigation and prosecution, I can say I mostly dislike both, but for very different reasons.

[mbison]

Recently, I've noticed a lot of former litigators with technical backgrounds being hired for in-house positions where they manage prosecution. In my firm, it's created a lot of friction in terms of personalities and expectations, and some associates are internally "firing" the former litigators as clients.

Yeah, I've seen this happen too. A lot of big tech companies like to hire in-house counsel from top firms / top schools, and top firms often do little to no prosecution due to budget constraints. So you end up with an HYS grad with 2 years of giant litigation experience trying to review people's patent applications and office action responses.

[Anonymous User]

Current 1L w/ EE+PatBar. I'm working this summer in a V100's Patent Pros+Lit group.

Bidding right now for PLIP and OCI. How do I know which firms are "better than" my current firm? This seems incredibly hard to discern for IP practices. A lot of the Silicon Valley offices/firms are quite small, and a lot of them are not on the traditional "ranking" websites like Chambers.

By "better" I just mean giving you the most options lateraling down the road or whatever.

I'm a Silicon Valley patent prosecutor at a boutique.

For patent pros, there aren't really "better firms" but better attorneys. None of the firm rankings are taken seriously. It's a very individualized profession.

However, I do think that working at a larger office/firm would give you more options because it can be more attractive to in-house people who aren't familiar with patent prosecution. Generally, the lower tech the company, the more the prestige matters. So, consumer software oriented companies would be easier to go to from a large firm. For the more high-tech companies, it doesn't really matter as much.

As for lateraling between firms, that's very easy within the Bay Area. Recruitment is very difficult right now. Everyone works on the same clients, so the work is all the same. You provide writing samples to the employer before they decide to interview you. The main difference is that some people are efficient and some are not. An efficient patent prosecutor will always be able to lateral, even for someone who basically works for a solo. Bay Area patent prosecution is a different universe than what you would generally read about the legal profession.

Big firm patent litigator here who has tried to work with prosecutors before. IMO, every Silicon Valley prosecutor I've worked with is shit, pure shit. They produce shit work and generally provide piss poor client service. I don't mean this as a knock on anyone personally, but it really shows how the supply/demand situation is reversed from litigation (where doing a poor job gets you PERMANENTLY barred from EVER working with a client again). Patent prosecutors can churn out pure shit for years for the same client without any consequences.

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

[Anonymous User]

Current 1L w/ EE+PatBar. I'm working this summer in a V100's Patent Pros+Lit group.

Bidding right now for PLIP and OCI. How do I know which firms are "better than" my current firm? This seems incredibly hard to discern for IP practices. A lot of the Silicon Valley offices/firms are quite small, and a lot of them are not on the traditional "ranking" websites like Chambers.

By "better" I just mean giving you the most options lateraling down the road or whatever.

I'm a Silicon Valley patent prosecutor at a boutique.

For patent pros, there aren't really "better firms" but better attorneys. None of the firm rankings are taken seriously. It's a very individualized profession.

However, I do think that working at a larger office/firm would give you more options because it can be more attractive to in-house people who aren't familiar with patent prosecution. Generally, the lower tech the company, the more the prestige matters. So, consumer software oriented companies would be easier to go to from a large firm. For the more high-tech companies, it doesn't really matter as much.

As for lateraling between firms, that's very easy within the Bay Area. Recruitment is very difficult right now. Everyone works on the same clients, so the work is all the same. You provide writing samples to the employer before they decide to interview you. The main difference is that some people are efficient and some are not. An efficient patent prosecutor will always be able to lateral, even for someone who basically works for a solo. Bay Area patent prosecution is a different universe than what you would generally read about the legal profession.

Big firm patent litigator here who has tried to work with prosecutors before. IMO, every Silicon Valley prosecutor I've worked with is shit, pure shit. They produce shit work and generally provide piss poor client service. I don't mean this as a knock on anyone personally, but it really shows how the supply/demand situation is reversed from litigation (where doing a poor job gets you PERMANENTLY barred from EVER working with a client again). Patent prosecutors can churn out pure shit for years for the same client without any consequences.

The bar is extremely low and the industry has shifted to a quantity over quality mentality. It's all about churn. However, litigators and prosecutors do look at patents completely differently. My experience with litigators is basically the same, but I've realized that we just operate differently. I've even gotten litigators removed from matters because I've threatened to no longer work with a client, and losing my bandwidth is way more of a loss than the litigator due to the supply/demand situation.

[Anonymous User]

Litigator from two posts above here:

Yeah, the whole volume over quality thing makes absolutely no sense to me. I really hope the new CBM/IPR procedures get commoditized to the point where we can kill these shit patents as fast as they are issued. Maybe then you guys will start producing patents that actually have some value.

[Anonymous User]

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

Sorry, I missed this edit.

A lot of patent applications shouldn't even be filed, so of course they'll get invalidated before PTAB. People are filing applications on every engineering accomplishment. These aren't necessarily inventions.

I don't really see people cutting back on volume because it's all a numbers game. In-house counsel are reviewed based on the number of patent filings. Number of filings is a lot easier to understand to the CTO or CEO than quality.

[Anonymous User]

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

Sorry, I missed this edit.

A lot of patent applications shouldn't even be filed, so of course they'll get invalidated before PTAB. People are filing applications on every engineering accomplishment. These aren't necessarily inventions.

I don't really see people cutting back on volume because it's all a numbers game. In-house counsel are reviewed based on the number of patent filings. Number of filings is a lot easier to understand to the CTO or CEO than quality.

But can you at least admit that quantity over quality is objectively idiotic?

[run26.2]

How much do you hate having to do pitches for new cases? I hate it.

Why do you hate these things so much? I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective, but maybe you've had some miserable experiences, IDK.

[Anonymous User]

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

Sorry, I missed this edit.

A lot of patent applications shouldn't even be filed, so of course they'll get invalidated before PTAB. People are filing applications on every engineering accomplishment. These aren't necessarily inventions.

I don't really see people cutting back on volume because it's all a numbers game. In-house counsel are reviewed based on the number of patent filings. Number of filings is a lot easier to understand to the CTO or CEO than quality.

But can you at least admit that quantity over quality is objectively idiotic?

I don't like it, but it's really all about the client's strategy. I work on some very patent savvy clients with very large budgets and everything goes through several levels of review. They want quality. Other clients just don't care. They want your availability, not your quality.

I do see the capacity for prosecution shrinking, so perhaps budgets will increase and quality will go up as clients compete for availability, especially since everyone wants things filed immediately nowadays.

[09042014]

How much do you hate having to do pitches for new cases? I hate it.

Why do you hate these things so much? I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective, but maybe you've had some miserable experiences, IDK.

It's sort of boring. You have to rush to put together shit research that nobody really cares about. And you don't get billable credit for it.

[Anonymous User]

Current 1L w/ EE+PatBar. I'm working this summer in a V100's Patent Pros+Lit group.

Bidding right now for PLIP and OCI. How do I know which firms are "better than" my current firm? This seems incredibly hard to discern for IP practices. A lot of the Silicon Valley offices/firms are quite small, and a lot of them are not on the traditional "ranking" websites like Chambers.

By "better" I just mean giving you the most options lateraling down the road or whatever.

I'm a Silicon Valley patent prosecutor at a boutique.

For patent pros, there aren't really "better firms" but better attorneys. None of the firm rankings are taken seriously. It's a very individualized profession.

However, I do think that working at a larger office/firm would give you more options because it can be more attractive to in-house people who aren't familiar with patent prosecution. Generally, the lower tech the company, the more the prestige matters. So, consumer software oriented companies would be easier to go to from a large firm. For the more high-tech companies, it doesn't really matter as much.

As for lateraling between firms, that's very easy within the Bay Area. Recruitment is very difficult right now. Everyone works on the same clients, so the work is all the same. You provide writing samples to the employer before they decide to interview you. The main difference is that some people are efficient and some are not. An efficient patent prosecutor will always be able to lateral, even for someone who basically works for a solo. Bay Area patent prosecution is a different universe than what you would generally read about the legal profession.

Big firm patent litigator here who has tried to work with prosecutors before. IMO, every Silicon Valley prosecutor I've worked with is shit, pure shit. They produce shit work and generally provide piss poor client service. I don't mean this as a knock on anyone personally, but it really shows how the supply/demand situation is reversed from litigation (where doing a poor job gets you PERMANENTLY barred from EVER working with a client again). Patent prosecutors can churn out pure shit for years for the same client without any consequences.

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

@ the patent litigator

I am the original Anon quoted. I am more interested in the patent lit side versus prosecution. Would you have a substantially different take on what firms to look at?

And to the prosecutor, thanks a lot for the response, makes a lot of sense.

Thanks for any input!

[Abbie Doobie]

Maybe it's because you guys are so concerned with "efficiency." Well I have news for you: The vast majority of your patents are pure shit and only win in litigation in front of idiot juries, but that's all changing now that we have IPRs. Stick your shit patent in front of a PTAB panel that actually knows what it's doing and your patents are invalidated 90+% of the time. Prepare for your clients to start cutting back dramatically on the VOLUME of patents they get and focusing more on quality.

Sorry, I missed this edit.

A lot of patent applications shouldn't even be filed, so of course they'll get invalidated before PTAB. People are filing applications on every engineering accomplishment. These aren't necessarily inventions.

I don't really see people cutting back on volume because it's all a numbers game. In-house counsel are reviewed based on the number of patent filings. Number of filings is a lot easier to understand to the CTO or CEO than quality.

But can you at least admit that quantity over quality is objectively idiotic?

I don't like it, but it's really all about the client's strategy. I work on some very patent savvy clients with very large budgets and everything goes through several levels of review. They want quality. Other clients just don't care. They want your availability, not your quality.

I do see the capacity for prosecution shrinking, so perhaps budgets will increase and quality will go up as clients compete for availability, especially since everyone wants things filed immediately nowadays.

can you provide an example of a well written patent?

[Anonymous User]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but maybe someone in this thread can answer it.

Is it worth taking the patent bar if my degree is in biological sciences? It seems most patent agent jobs want an engineering or computer science degree. How important is it to employers (for an attorney position, not patent agent position) to be anything more than pat-bar eligible when it comes to hiring?

[run26.2]

How much do you hate having to do pitches for new cases? I hate it.

Why do you hate these things so much? I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective, but maybe you've had some miserable experiences, IDK.

It's sort of boring. You have to rush to put together shit research that nobody really cares about. And you don't get billable credit for it.

That's too bad that it doesn't count toward your billables. It's immaterial at my firm. Even still, that means there's even more incentive vis-a-vis another associate who also thinks pitches aren't worth the effort, to do a great job.

Not sure why you say nobody cares about the research, or that it isn't good quality. I have done numerous pitches where the client commented on particular non-infringement or invalidity theories that they liked.

[mbison]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but maybe someone in this thread can answer it.

Is it worth taking the patent bar if my degree is in biological sciences? It seems most patent agent jobs want an engineering or computer science degree. How important is it to employers (for an attorney position, not patent agent position) to be anything more than pat-bar eligible when it comes to hiring?

There is demand for bio but it's tough without a phd, whereas a bs is sufficient for CS/EE.

[Anonymous User]

I will be working in biglaw patent litigation - between clerking on NDCA v. CDCA, is one viewed as being better than the other? Do clients/firms care between these two districts? Thanks.