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1L at a T30.

My UG was exercise science. Depending on whether or not OED accepts anatomy and physiology as science/biology classes, I may qualify under category B. Does anyone know if anatomy or physiology are acceptable?

If I am eligible to sit for the patent bar, are my job prospects any better than without it?

Thanks

In all likelihood, I doubt your job prospects would increase much at all because of your degree. Patent hiring is unlike many other legal hiring processes because your undergraduate degree and work experience can matter just as much (if not more) than your law school and law school GPA / class rank. Technical degrees (engineering), PhDs (pharma), and experience in software dev are what are valued highly (from my anecdotal experience), while soft degrees (exercise science almost definitely included) are seen as an impediment for what is inevitably a technical field.

An honest assessment - the Patent Bar takes ~200 hours to study for. You would probably be better served by applying that 200 hours to your normal legal studies and getting yourself into the upper percentages of your class rank. That would absolutely open up your job prospects, while your degree would make you a very weak applicant for patent attorney positions.

I know that might come off as a bit harsh, but your degree would be a major impediment.

Samus12 wrote:My UG was exercise science.

So... A BYU grad who didn't want to go to Dental School, eh? I got you.

You are extremely unlikely to get a job doing patent prosecution as firms require having engineering or hard science degrees. It could help a little bit with getting a patent litigation position, since many law firms do hire non-STEM attorneys. Passing the patent bar would show a committed interest in the field. It won't get you a job, but it'll definitely help.

maybe u can get a reg. # but no chance it will get you a well paying patent law job

mecarey wrote:In all likelihood, I doubt your job prospects would increase much at all because of your degree. Patent hiring is unlike many other legal hiring processes because your undergraduate degree and work experience can matter just as much (if not more) than your law school and law school GPA / class rank. Technical degrees (engineering), PhDs (pharma), and experience in software dev are what are valued highly (from my anecdotal experience), while soft degrees (exercise science almost definitely included) are seen as an impediment for what is inevitably a technical field.

An honest assessment - the Patent Bar takes ~200 hours to study for. You would probably be better served by applying that 200 hours to your normal legal studies and getting yourself into the upper percentages of your class rank. That would absolutely open up your job prospects, while your degree would make you a very weak applicant for patent attorney positions.

I know that might come off as a bit harsh, but your degree would be a major impediment.

As someone who learned that her engineering degree was inadequate for IP hiring because it was the wrong kind of engineering, I echo this.

I sat through multiple interviews with people who made it clear that environmental engineering might as well be dental hygienist school, despite my transcript showing that it overlapped about 75% with chemE. I can't imagine Category B doing any better.

rinkrat19 wrote:

mecarey wrote:In all likelihood, I doubt your job prospects would increase much at all because of your degree. Patent hiring is unlike many other legal hiring processes because your undergraduate degree and work experience can matter just as much (if not more) than your law school and law school GPA / class rank. Technical degrees (engineering), PhDs (pharma), and experience in software dev are what are valued highly (from my anecdotal experience), while soft degrees (exercise science almost definitely included) are seen as an impediment for what is inevitably a technical field.

An honest assessment - the Patent Bar takes ~200 hours to study for. You would probably be better served by applying that 200 hours to your normal legal studies and getting yourself into the upper percentages of your class rank. That would absolutely open up your job prospects, while your degree would make you a very weak applicant for patent attorney positions.

I know that might come off as a bit harsh, but your degree would be a major impediment.

As someone who learned that her engineering degree was inadequate for IP hiring because it was the wrong kind of engineering, I echo this.

I sat through multiple interviews with people who made it clear that environmental engineering might as well be dental hygienist school, despite my transcript showing that it overlapped about 75% with chemE. I can't imagine Category B doing any better.

the degree thing can often times be driven by clients, and therefore is more about the degree name than the actual substance of that degree. for example, when i worked at a firm, there were many big-named clients that required each attorney to be vetted by the client's in-house counsel before even being approved to bill on their matters. some of them would want things like EE only or EE + prior semiconductor drafting experience. some of them would require in-house counsel to review the attorney's prior draft applications before being approved. the smaller clients weren't putting up enough money to be picky on who does their drafting, so that is where the firm stuck the "other" degrees.

Do patent lit and be thankful you won't be asked to do patent prosecution. If you can get that reg #, go for it.

I don't know what kind of patents you'd work on with an "exercise science" degree, if you want to go into pros. E.g., would you feel comfortable making arguments about medical devices/mechanical engineering patents? Software patents about medical processes? Pharmaceuticals? If you think you'd feel really comfortable reading a research paper on any of these and making arguments about minute distinctions between various things in the paper, then Patent Bar may help you get into pros, but it'll still be an uphill battle to convince people that you are capable of doing that kind of work. If you can't say you could read research papers on any of that and fully understand them, then I don't know what kind of patents you could adequately prosecute.

I imagine pretty much any other work you would get (maybe lit/transactions) wouldn't really require the Patent Bar (it may show interest in the field, but it's not going to do much past that).

I'd guess anatomy and physiology classes won't qualify under Cat. B unless you can prove it was basically a biochem course. E.g., if your syllabus and course description makes it sound a lot like a biochem course, maybe you can get them to accept it. Without an explanation, I'd highly doubt it'll get approved.