Oodles, potentially. At the outset, however, we need to make a distinction between patent prosecution and litigation.hurldes wrote:^seriously... how much do they care if your LS grades are stellar?
If you're going the prosecution route, then you're going to be dealing with LOTS of technology (e.g. background technology in the art, the particular invention being prosecuted, whether and to what extent the patent specification and claims can be read on patentability, etc...). Prosecution is often a tech-intensive exercise since to vindicate a patentee's rights to a patent, the prosecuting attorney must have not only a good handle on procedural law (which isn't that conceptually difficult), but to a greater extent, the underlying subject matter. THUS, UG engineering grades are going to play a BIG role for prosecution.
If you're going the litigation route, then you're going to be dealing with technology to a lesser extent. While it is important to have a good grasp of the invention and the relevant art, it is arguably more important to be able to do legal analysis, drafting, advocacy, etc... Thus, LS grades are the generally accepted proxy (at least in large part, since UG grades will still come into play somewhat) for how you'll perform at a firm.
Tl;dr...if you want to do litigation, don't worry too much about UG grades and focus on doing very well in LS; if you want to do prosecution, then have a good excuse prepared if your GPA looks bad/low.
