IP/Patent Law - Engineering degree required? Forum

[Zugzwang]

my apologies for not differentiating the two exams. I forgot law students like to make sure everyone knows their exams are hard. Especially law students who were once scientists who had to make sure everyone knew how hard their engineering classes were.

congrats on being both a douche, and a retard

[yellowjacket2012]

uh, it is a "law exam" - not a "science exam" - that word choice is pretty much spot on. It is an exam testing certain rules, its kinda like a civ-pro for patent prosecution, thus it is an exam on law. Once you're brainwashed in law school to think of fact pattern issue spotting as the only "law exam" - then yeah, in the sense of a law school exam the patent exam isn't a law exam.. but the point he's getting at is you can be a scientifically untrained dude and take the patent bar no problemo. just download the PLI cds and you're good to go. Or whatever other $1k product they got out there for this exam - all you REALLY need to do is do a bunch of old practice tests since THEY REPEAT THE SAME QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN (TEST AFTER TEST).

And yes, engineer-turned-law students do have an abnoxious pretense about themselves and their oh so rigorous past; its like they're here as refugees from a war or something. Engineering isn't that hard for a history major to do - if you're a curious person, you can do whatever you want with some effort. And I say this with a BS/MS in EE.

[Zugzwang]

I don't think a single person in this thread has given the impression that their degree was really fucking difficult. Nor did anyone make that same implication for the patent bar.

[ResolutePear]

uh, it is a "law exam" - not a "science exam" - that word choice is pretty much spot on. It is an exam testing certain rules, its kinda like a civ-pro for patent prosecution, thus it is an exam on law. Once you're brainwashed in law school to think of fact pattern issue spotting as the only "law exam" - then yeah, in the sense of a law school exam the patent exam isn't a law exam.. but the point he's getting at is you can be a scientifically untrained dude and take the patent bar no problemo. just download the PLI cds and you're good to go. Or whatever other $1k product they got out there for this exam - all you REALLY need to do is do a bunch of old practice tests since THEY REPEAT THE SAME QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN (TEST AFTER TEST).

And yes, engineer-turned-law students do have an abnoxious pretense about themselves and their oh so rigorous past; its like they're here as refugees from a war or something. Engineering isn't that hard for a history major to do - if you're a curious person, you can do whatever you want with some effort. And I say this with a BS/MS in EE.

You're really going to sit here and tell me that a History major can build nuclear bombs and particle accelerators with the sole skill of curiosity, aren't you? There is no amount of history that'll help you with these tasks.

[Duralex]

Not build, but perhaps adequately describe and distinguish one design from another? Considering a less advanced technology might make the point better: I would plenty of firearm experts on the historical side could do an adequate job describing the technical features of different designs or the essential element of a particular advance in the state of the art even without being a gunsmith or metallurgist, etc.

But what people can do in theory doesn't really matter that much as it seems to me that the members of the patent bar don't really want any of this to change, and the rest of the legal community doesn't seem too concerned about it.

From an efficiency standpoint, that might be very well justified. If you started admitting subject matter experts without a broad sci/eng background you might need to restrict them to their particular area of knowledge. And that sounds like an expensive, clumsy mess.

[BeautifulSW]

I know of two states, Michigan and New Hampshire, that will allow you to take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam without any education or experience requirements. You don't need to be a state resident. Pass that exam, and the USPTO will allow you to take the Patent Bar exam.

Good luck, though. The F/E exam is difficult enough for people with an engineering background. I can't imagine someone passing it who never studied, say, vector calculus or differential equations.

There is a small Patent Bar here in New Mexico due in part, I think, to the various national laboratories and defense contractors located in the state. And of course, we've also got a chunk of Intel. Most of the patent lawyers seem to have Ph.D. degrees in their technical subjects.

[dood]

...

[ResolutePear]

hahaha a non-engineer passing F/E exam is retarded. it is LOL retarded. i usually try to restrain myself, but passing F/E without engineering background is ROFL...no fucking way. and even stupider is doing it just to sit for the patent bar. that being said, patent bar is retarded easy, it has nothing to do with science or law - just pure memorization.

You do know that a hard-science(Physics, Chem) major or Mathematician(Applied Mathematics) would probably have about the same knowledge in ways of theory, right? Engineering is all about putting the theoretical to practice.

[BeautifulSW]

New Mexico used to permit holders of bachelor degrees in "related sciences" to take the F/E exam. Some passed, I guess, but it's no longer permitted here.

I don't doubt that a physics major could master the material well enough to pass. I think, though, that the problem would be becoming efficient enough to work the problems in the allotted time.

One odd group that N.Mex. DOES allow to take the exam is graduates of ABET accredited BSET technology programs. IIRC, the techs did better than the related science people but worse than the engineers. But it's been a lot of years since I checked.

[BeautifulSW]

Oh, I should also remind folks that a bachelor degree in most physical and life sciences will qualify for the patent bar. It doesn't have to be engineering. It can even be a B.S. in computer science.

[yellowjacket2012]

You're really going to sit here and tell me that a History major can build nuclear bombs and particle accelerators with the sole skill of curiosity, aren't you? There is no amount of history that'll help you with these tasks.

I think engineering is just "more boring" to a whole lot of people who are intellectually "able" to handle it - for some reason or another, they just find it really dry.. so I guess what I'm saying is - engineering doesn't become "hard" just because its boring - its just what it is - boring - to a lot of people (not to me though)

[yellowjacket2012]

hahaha a non-engineer passing F/E exam is retarded. it is LOL retarded. i usually try to restrain myself, but passing F/E without engineering background is ROFL...no fucking way. and even stupider is doing it just to sit for the patent bar. that being said, patent bar is retarded easy, it has nothing to do with science or law - just pure memorization.

Yeah, I mean, I've argued that engineering isn't hard - but I've looked at FE prep material, you'd likely need a degree in engg to do that crap

[czelede]

You're really going to sit here and tell me that a History major can build nuclear bombs and particle accelerators with the sole skill of curiosity, aren't you? There is no amount of history that'll help you with these tasks.

I think engineering is just "more boring" to a whole lot of people who are intellectually "able" to handle it - for some reason or another, they just find it really dry.. so I guess what I'm saying is - engineering doesn't become "hard" just because its boring - its just what it is - boring - to a lot of people (not to me though)

Within engineering there are obviously varying degrees of difficulty - I don't think engineering is "hard" because its boring, sometimes it really is just hard. I couldn't understand electromagnetism no matter how hard I tried, and that was all there was to it. It wasn't because "I was bored and chose not to pursue it". Sure, there are a lot of intellectually capable people who chose not to "handle" engineering - hell, I have a friend who turned down MIT to major in history (she's doing great in it, too) but when you're looking at your average person, I would be willing to wager that there are more who could handle the humanities than those that could handle engineering.

This is not to say that there aren't many rigorous and intellectually challenging studies within non-engineering fields - so again, not depreciating the value of other areas of studies in any way. However, I would argue that an engineering degree is definitely harder to obtain than your average liberal arts & humanities degree because of the following:

- Generally a larger courseload (at my school, there are a LOT more hours required graduate for engineering)
- Completely objective grading (there's only one right answer, ever, and sometimes your professor is a sadist)
- Grade deflation (crushes the soul!) means you have to work a lot harder for that A
- Generally more time consuming (related to the above)

[yellowjacket2012]

- Grade deflation (crushes the soul!) means you have to work a lot harder for that A

Wonder if some engineering schools have grade inflation, that'll make those kids look brilliant, lol