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For hard science and engineering grads, with crap GPA's, what do you all think of going to i.e. American, George Mason, G-town, or GW PT while working full time at the USPTO as an examiner? Would that be valuable experience to put on your resume after getting your J.D.? Or is it better to keep the option to intern/work at a firm during summers and 2L/3L?

depends on what you want to do with your jd. do you want to go into patent law? if so, do the p/t and work

hefox wrote:depends on what you want to do with your jd. do you want to go into patent law? if so, do the p/t and work

Gtown doesn't have much of a patent program compared to GW and GMU. How much of a factor should that be? GMU has an awesome patent prosecution clinic.

The general consensus around TLS for engineers interested in patent law is to just go to the best school as possible and do the best you can there. The specialties usually end up useless.

i just though if he was already working for a patent office then he could probably get a job there when he graduates from not-the-best-school-ever. he is already putting in the face time, they will know he is reliable and dedicated. he could just move up to a better office with better pay (or not better pay, w/e).

but then again, I dont know anything about patent law, except that they have a harder bar or something. though I do know working for the government is sweet.

GW is a nationwide school for patent law, I don't know that the same holds for non-t14 schools other than UT-Austin. The CAFC has a good number of GW kids in there.

They have a significant alumni base in virtually every top patent litigation department, this makes a big difference. Isn't the Fed. Cir. journal housed in GW, and don't Rader/Duffy teach there? These things make a HUGE difference if your goal is clerkships, those people are very good people to know for non-clerkship reasons as well.

I think it could be a good way to reduce the total debt for the J.D. but I'd be leery unless I was pretty sure I wanted to do IP after law school. And if I was sure, I'd prepare myself for the very real but very depressing discovery that I could do almost as much with the Patent Agent license alone as with an additional and very expensive J.D.

amyLAchemist wrote:

BeautifulSW wrote:I think it could be a good way to reduce the total debt for the J.D. but I'd be leery unless I was pretty sure I wanted to do IP after law school. And if I was sure, I'd prepare myself for the very real but very depressing discovery that I could do almost as much with the Patent Agent license alone as with an additional and very expensive J.D.

This isn't really true.

Please explain. I have always been wondering why doing patent prosecution needs a JD. Patent agents can do all the patent prosecution work and charge a lower rate.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand that agents can do patent prosecution, but I'd really like to have the flexibility of a JD. I'm not sure I want to do nothing but prep and pros chemical patents for the rest of my life. Also, like a previous poster said, doing the USPTO and going to GWU (maybe G-town) part time seems like a great way to mitigate debt and get valued experience on your resume.

Off topic, I think Boston University has pretty national reach for patent attorneys?

I've PMed you.