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Patent litigation is dead or dying at nearly every firm, including mine. They're not even bothering with stealth layoffs at this point - they're just firing entire departments en mass. Thanks to the courts invalidating every patent they can get their hands on, corporate IP budgets are down more than 70% from peak, and still dropping. And exit options are terrible, making things that much worse.

Any advice for how I can get back into engineering despite my law experience? Should I get a masters degree?

Confused--then why are case filings up higher than they've ever been?

sweetscholarlytreats wrote:Patent litigation is dead or dying at nearly every firm, including mine. They're not even bothering with stealth layoffs at this point - they're just firing entire departments en mass.

What firms are you talking about? The "firing" of an entire litigation "department" would make news in the world of big law.

sweetscholarlytreats wrote:Patent litigation is dead or dying at nearly every firm, including mine. They're not even bothering with stealth layoffs at this point - they're just firing entire departments en mass. Thanks to the courts invalidating every patent they can get their hands on, corporate IP budgets are down more than 70% from peak, and still dropping. And exit options are terrible, making things that much worse.

Any advice for how I can get back into engineering despite my law experience? Should I get a masters degree?

obtain chinese/indian citizenship and get in through the h1-b program. pretty much the only way to get an engineering job now 'n' days.

rpupkin wrote:

sweetscholarlytreats wrote:Patent litigation is dead or dying at nearly every firm, including mine. They're not even bothering with stealth layoffs at this point - they're just firing entire departments en mass.

What firms are you talking about? The "firing" of an entire litigation "department" would make news in the world of big law.

Yeah - thought I would have heard about that.

Aren't a few areas in patent lit doing fairly well? Like medical stuff? Heard that somewhere but might be blowing smoke out of my ass.

I don't think patent lit is any more dead than every other lit and law in general.

just stub year things

This guy is a great prognosticator
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1#p8829361

sweetscholarlytreats wrote:Patent litigation is dead or dying at nearly every firm, including mine.

Citation needed.

Thanks to the courts invalidating every patent they can get their hands on,

Citation needed.

corporate IP budgets are down more than 70% from peak, and still dropping.

Citation needed.

Any advice for how I can get back into engineering despite my law experience? Should I get a masters degree?

Go apply for a management job at an engineering firm.

I have heard rumblings that patent lit is slow, but the patent lit group at my firm is incredibly busy and is hiring laterals like crazy....

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard rumblings that patent lit is slow, but the patent lit group at my firm is incredibly busy and is hiring laterals like crazy....

bad sign, your firm is on its way to collapse

fats provolone wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard rumblings that patent lit is slow, but the patent lit group at my firm is incredibly busy and is hiring laterals like crazy....

bad sign, your firm is on its way to collapse

Oh yes, being busy is a sign of imminent collapse indeed. I should have stayed at my prior firm where there was no work! Damn!

Anonymous User wrote:

fats provolone wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard rumblings that patent lit is slow, but the patent lit group at my firm is incredibly busy and is hiring laterals like crazy....

bad sign, your firm is on its way to collapse

Oh yes, being busy is a sign of imminent collapse indeed. I should have stayed at my prior firm where there was no work! Damn!

i dunno if you missed the warnings of the literal cassandra who started this thread but patent litigation is dead.

dying stars experience a flurry of activity just before supernova fyi

Anonymous User wrote:

fats provolone wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard rumblings that patent lit is slow, but the patent lit group at my firm is incredibly busy and is hiring laterals like crazy....

bad sign, your firm is on its way to collapse

Oh yes, being busy is a sign of imminent collapse indeed. I should have stayed at my prior firm where there was no work! Damn!

If your firm has a Sarcasm practice group, I recommend avoiding it. You'll struggle with the subject matter.

I don't know what firm OP is talking about or what the overall numbers are. However, I do know from other attorneys in my region that a lot of IP lit. has been moving to smaller boutique firms, mostly because we're seen as cheaper and better at navigating PGR stuff at the patent office. My firm has been doing better than ever this year, so that's been my impression as well.

Stevoman wrote:I don't know what firm OP is talking about or what the overall numbers are. However, I do know from other attorneys in my region that a lot of IP lit. has been moving to smaller boutique firms, mostly because we're seen as cheaper and better at navigating PGR stuff at the patent office. My firm has been doing better than ever this year, so that's been my impression as well.

pto trials /= patent lit tho

Desert Fox wrote:

Abbie Doobie wrote:

Stevoman wrote:I don't know what firm OP is talking about or what the overall numbers are. However, I do know from other attorneys in my region that a lot of IP lit. has been moving to smaller boutique firms, mostly because we're seen as cheaper and better at navigating PGR stuff at the patent office. My firm has been doing better than ever this year, so that's been my impression as well.

pto trials /= patent lit tho

If your firm thinks way that is a big reason you are slow. Most real cases. We'd an IPR. And lol at turning down an extra 500k of bjllables and telling your client another firm is better at pgr.

bro do you even english?

Desert Fox wrote:

Abbie Doobie wrote:

Stevoman wrote:I don't know what firm OP is talking about or what the overall numbers are. However, I do know from other attorneys in my region that a lot of IP lit. has been moving to smaller boutique firms, mostly because we're seen as cheaper and better at navigating PGR stuff at the patent office. My firm has been doing better than ever this year, so that's been my impression as well.

pto trials /= patent lit tho

If your firm thinks way that is a big reason you are slow. Most real cases. We'd an IPR. And lol at turning down an extra 500k of bjllables and telling your client another firm is better at pgr.

Yeah this. I don't like IPR/CBM as much as district court litigation, the PTAB can be terrible. But being able to handle all of PTAB/dist. ct./CAFC positions you much better than a firm who only does dist. ct. And having strategies between the fora be consistent is a lot easier when a single team is handling it all.

Do any of you also do ITC stuff, or is that totally separate? Seems pretty interesting

flawschoolkid wrote:Do any of you also do ITC stuff, or is that totally separate? Seems pretty interesting

just faster and you don't have to worry about that damages stuff

skri65 wrote:Confused--then why are case filings up higher than they've ever been?

Almost all of those cases are not real cases. They are extortion lawsuits brought by trolls in ED Tex that will end up going nowhere or ANDA cases that will almost certainly settle before generating any meaningfully large amount of billables for the typical biglaw firm.