Daily Life of an IP Forum

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jeremiah123

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Daily Life of an IP

Post by jeremiah123 » Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:26 am

Hey I'm a student learning about being an IP. Could someone describe what you would do daily?

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KunAgnis

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by KunAgnis » Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:01 am

You might want to define what you mean by "IP" and provide more parameters. Not trying to be a dick but this question is very open-ended and generic.

Thom

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by Thom » Mon Sep 09, 2019 1:00 pm

If you mean intellectual property with patents courts (includes copywrites and trademark I believe too) then the good news is the license is good nation wide (since it's own court) bad news is a very low pass rate on its own additional bar exam plus even lawyers need a STEM undergrad degree so for many it's already too late unless they backtrack a bit. I considered it myself at one point but my undergrad wasn't applicable.

QContinuum

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by QContinuum » Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:14 pm

Thom wrote:If you mean intellectual property with patents courts (includes copywrites and trademark I believe too) then the good news is the license is good nation wide (since it's own court) bad news is a very low pass rate on its own additional bar exam plus even lawyers need a STEM undergrad degree so for many it's already too late unless they backtrack a bit. I considered it myself at one point but my undergrad wasn't applicable.
A bit of wrong information in the post above.

The "patent bar" - see https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-reso ... gistration - is only required for those seeking to practice in patent matters before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This basically means: 1) Patent prosecutors (i.e., the folks who draft patent applications and "prosecute" them before the USPTO to get an issued patent). And 2) Patent litigators who do post-grant work (IPRs) before the USPTO.

The following do not need to pass the patent bar (though doing so may be advantageous for job prospects, as passing the "patent bar" in addition to a state bar allows one to market oneself as a "patent attorney"):
  • Copyright & trademark (colloquially "soft IP") lawyers, including copyright & trademark lawyers who practice before the USPTO.
  • Patent litigators who only practice in the federal courts, including the Federal Circuit.
  • IP transactional lawyers who handle IP-related corporate work.
A J.D. (or admission to a state bar, for that matter) is neither necessary nor sufficient to confer eligibility to take the patent bar. Rather, eligibility turns on whether one has taken a sufficient number of qualifying college-level STEM courses.

It is entirely possible, and in fact, quite common for non-J.D.s to take the patent bar. If a nonlawyer passes the patent bar, s/he is then eligible to register to practice before the USPTO as a patent agent. The scope of their practice is restricted to patent matters (no copyright or trademark matters), and to matters before the USPTO (no handling appeals to the DDC or the Federal Circuit). Passing the patent bar does not confer eligibility to practice before any court. It only confers eligibility to practice before the USPTO.

(Conversely, lawyers cannot practice before the USPTO in patent matters until and unless they qualify for and pass the patent bar.)

Thom

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by Thom » Sat Sep 21, 2019 11:09 am

QContinuum wrote:
Thom wrote:If you mean intellectual property with patents courts (includes copywrites and trademark I believe too) then the good news is the license is good nation wide (since it's own court) bad news is a very low pass rate on its own additional bar exam plus even lawyers need a STEM undergrad degree so for many it's already too late unless they backtrack a bit. I considered it myself at one point but my undergrad wasn't applicable.
A bit of wrong information in the post above.

The "patent bar" - see https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-reso ... gistration - is only required for those seeking to practice in patent matters before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This basically means: 1) Patent prosecutors (i.e., the folks who draft patent applications and "prosecute" them before the USPTO to get an issued patent). And 2) Patent litigators who do post-grant work (IPRs) before the USPTO.

The following do not need to pass the patent bar (though doing so may be advantageous for job prospects, as passing the "patent bar" in addition to a state bar allows one to market oneself as a "patent attorney"):
  • Copyright & trademark (colloquially "soft IP") lawyers, including copyright & trademark lawyers who practice before the USPTO.
  • Patent litigators who only practice in the federal courts, including the Federal Circuit.
  • IP transactional lawyers who handle IP-related corporate work.
A J.D. (or admission to a state bar, for that matter) is neither necessary nor sufficient to confer eligibility to take the patent bar. Rather, eligibility turns on whether one has taken a sufficient number of qualifying college-level STEM courses.

It is entirely possible, and in fact, quite common for non-J.D.s to take the patent bar. If a nonlawyer passes the patent bar, s/he is then eligible to register to practice before the USPTO as a patent agent. The scope of their practice is restricted to patent matters (no copyright or trademark matters), and to matters before the USPTO (no handling appeals to the DDC or the Federal Circuit). Passing the patent bar does not confer eligibility to practice before any court. It only confers eligibility to practice before the USPTO.

(Conversely, lawyers cannot practice before the USPTO in patent matters until and unless they qualify for and pass the patent bar.)
Thanks for the extra details. Do you think the income levels are higher enough to justify someone getting a JD if all they wanted to do with the stuff that didn't require a JD?

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dvlthndr

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by dvlthndr » Sat Sep 21, 2019 2:43 pm

Thom wrote:Thanks for the extra details. Do you think the income levels are higher enough to justify someone getting a JD if all they wanted to do with the stuff that didn't require a JD?
The only "stuff" you can do without a JD is patent prosecution. Salaries vary wildly, but an experienced patent agent with the right degrees is usually in the $100-125k range. By comparison, a full patent attorney might start in big-law, then move in-house somewhere and make $180-250k.

The question is a little weird because most patent agents can convince a firm to pay for their law school. The default expectation is that firms will pay for you to go to law school at a local part-time JD program, and some firms will even pay for you to go to a full-time program at a T14.

There are people that don't do school and are just full-time patent agents, but these are normally older folks with families and kids that just don't want to deal with the hassle. For most people, getting a firm to pay for your JD (while you pull down a salary and build experience and client connections) is the easy choice.

Thom

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Re: Daily Life of an IP

Post by Thom » Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:42 pm

I could see that being an incentive for many. Thanks for the insight .

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