[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to pat...
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Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent
agent/lawyer?
I have the chance to move from my engineering career (full-stack
robotics, software engineering, cloud background) to assist a law
firm as a patent agent in my respective fields. Has anyone made
this transition who can offer some input on how that transition
played out and what they learned?
Author : cybernoodles
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-01-24 14:36 UTC (8 hours ago)
| travisgriggs wrote:
| My office mate and good friend of many years is a patent agent.
| He was/is industrial/electronic/radio but then pursued patent
| agent 100% for a while.
|
| Ultimately he came back to tech, but acts as a sort of front line
| patent agent for our company as well.
|
| We have many discussions about the inanity of the whole system.
| I'm an idealist, he's more of a realist about it. It exists. If
| nothing else, we participate from a defensive posture.
|
| He has shared that he kind of likes the game of patents. You have
| an idea, which you then have to represent/express/model in a
| language that looks like English but isn't exactly that has its
| own set of rules and idioms. Or in short, it can be seen a lot
| like the software we write. While he likes it as a sort of
| variety, he seems to like it about 20%, and when the workload
| goes above that much commitment, the complaining starts and the
| desire to get back to "the real work we do" begins to be
| expressed.
|
| When I have asked him why he doesn't do more of it, he has shared
| the same observation others have shared here: Agent is a great
| skill to have to broaden your value, attorney is what you want to
| do if you want to earn lots of money at it.
|
| On that note, we both observe that the foundation of lawyering is
| to be in contention with someone, and generally speaking the less
| contention among people, the better. Someone's gotta do it
| apparently, but it's not a sphere of happiness.
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| Insightful post. I like the way you describe the intellectual
| attraction of prosecuting patents. I am not sure I understand
| your point about disputes being the foundation of lawyering but
| not patent law specifically. Patent litigation is rife, more so
| than in some adjacent fields (contract, privacy etc.) Most
| areas of law have both non-contentious and contentious aspects.
| southbalkan wrote:
| I went from electrical engineering (logic design and then
| aerospace) and went to law school (night school) specifically for
| patent law. I now have 14 years as a patent attorney writing
| patents. It is definitely a change of pace from designing
| circuits to a largely technical writing career.
|
| However, (with a small "boutique" firm) the hours are more
| flexible, the work is rewarding due to always learning new
| technology at the bleeding edge, and you get to interact with
| engineers/developers in the industry. Having a strong
| engineering/science background helps you in getting up to speed
| on new technology quickly, and having a strong writing background
| is a required skillset (but that can be developed over time). As
| with many careers, having good mentor(s) does make a difference.
| The "lawyer" part is definitely present, but more in the
| background for drafting/obtaining patents (referred to as
| "prosecution") vs. litigation work. For prosecution, "the law" is
| more about learning a set of "operating rules" and applying those
| rules to your daily work to both comply with the requirements and
| to anticipate litigation issues in the future. Patent work can
| also encompass licensing, employment agreements, trademarks,
| portfolio strategy, competitor analysis - all of which vary from
| firm to firm on how deeply that sort of work crops up. For
| litigation, you are definitely more involved in traditional
| attorney work, sometimes courtroom work/sometimes behind the
| scenes.
|
| To become a patent agent, passing the Patent Bar Exam is
| required, and takes a bit of studying - it is not trivial and
| largely learning a set of rules/procedures to practice in the
| field. Of course, adding the "attorney" title requires yet
| another more comprehensive Bar Exam (state-by-state) and most
| states also require attending a law school prior.
| cybernoodles wrote:
| What are your thoughts about the "two tier system" others are
| mentioning? I haven't heard of that before, but it seems like
| doing prosecution is not desirable? Some law firms offer to pay
| for your law school, so it doesn't seem bad doing prosecution
| while you attend law school, but I have no idea. The
| opportunity I was proposed is in patent prosecution, but it
| seems people transition into something else quite frequently.
| southbalkan wrote:
| If by two-tier, you refer to the prosecution (i.e. drafting)
| vs. litigation (i.e. lawsuit) tiers, there is a clear
| separation in the industry. I do prosecution exclusively, and
| can't answer if it is inherently desirable (inasmuch as any
| career path is desirable), but I don't find litigation
| appealing. On the litigation side of the world, you might
| find a faster-paced, higher-stressed, higher-compensated
| environment which has more significant deadlines and "stakes"
| especially when involved in court proceedings. However, I
| would also imagine that a more flexible career path is tied
| to such work since litigation can translate broadly to other
| lawyerly endeavors vs. the more specialized prosecution.
|
| But, to stress again, the work is inherently different on
| prosecution vs. litigation. Prosecution also has its work
| deadlines, but these can be managed more flexibly in
| practice. Prosecution is a joy for someone like me who
| prefers to largely work independently (once you learn your
| craft sufficiently), attempt a good work-life balance, learn
| new tech every day, apply that knowledge to writing about it
| in a very specialized manner, compartmentalize tasks (each
| patent can have its own mental silo), and still do some
| limited "lawyerly" work dealing with examiners at patent
| office to attempt to get patents allowed in light of the
| prior art. Plus, depending on the firm and your ambition, you
| can branch into anything - litigation, licensing, contracts,
| etc.
|
| I should note that you don't need to pass the patent bar exam
| to do litigation, but you would eventually need that for
| prosecution (agent, attorney). So some say that it can be
| harder to switch from litigation to prosecution because of
| that barrier.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think it really depends on which part of the industry you are
| working on, the stuff you describe matches my experience as an
| "inventor". I think there are two patent industries now:
|
| One is writing patents for new, novel, and interesting things
| and doing all the other things you describe.
|
| The other is churning out crappy patents as quickly as possible
| and flooding the patent office with whatever will stick.
| southbalkan wrote:
| I wouldn't disagree with that characterization... Gladly, I
| am in the first camp (I hope).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think of it as the difference between "what do we need
| patent to protect our IP" and "ok, what else can we
| patent?!?"
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| Interestingly I know a lot of people who have done the opposite -
| corporate law/IP law/patent law to software engineering.
| codingdave wrote:
| I started to - I went to law school with the intent of switching,
| and ultimately cut that short to go back to tech. I just didn't
| enjoy working with attorneys. I'm sure some people do, so my
| rejection of that industry should be taken with a grain of
| salt... but I'd take time to get to know who your professional
| community would be before committing to such a change.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| Wise choice. I've known attorneys professionally and have some
| in my extended family. I've never met a truly happy attorney
| yet.
| edge17 wrote:
| I have but they're also professors and they teach so I'm
| guessing that changes the dynamic a lot.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm a truly happy attorney! So is my wife. But it's a client
| service job. I think a lot of Americans suffer from delusions
| of grandeur, especially more highly educated ones, and the
| reality of being a cog in the machine really bursts their
| bubble. I think of myself more like a very skilled tradesman.
| People need legal representation, just like they need
| electricians. My trade is intellectually stimulating and
| highly remunerative, so why shouldn't I be happy?
| openknot wrote:
| I'm curious. What was your experience working with attorneys? I
| heard an anecdote from a law student that the classmates were
| highly competitive about grades. Less anecdotally, there was a
| recent Financial Times article about corporate lawyers at one
| firm billing ~100 hours each week, and others sleeping only ~5
| hours a night. It also reported a more accurate measurement
| from a survey:
|
| "That level of exhaustion is taking a toll. In a survey of over
| 1,700 lawyers published in September, LawCare -- a mental
| health charity in the sector -- found almost 70 per cent had
| experienced ill health, either clinically or self-diagnosed, in
| the 12 months to January 2021, including depression and
| anxiety. According to the study, those aged between 26 and 35
| were displaying the highest burnout scores -- in part because
| of a lack of autonomy over their working lives. A fifth of
| respondents said they felt unable to cope." [0]
|
| I'm guessing that law attracts competitive personalities who
| are willing to work long hours to make money, and that prospect
| might cause many lawyers to be high-strung.
|
| [0] Paywalled, but the most relevant bit is quoted:
| https://www.ft.com/content/f4006248-eb05-49d2-a938-d70118c4c...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's like anything else, people get into law and chase money
| without thinking about what they are getting into and why the
| pay is so high. Don't feel sorry for them, a bunch of type-a
| types killing each other for sport is by it's nature a
| stressful endeavor.
|
| Even in public sector, the mental toll of dealing with
| criminal prosecution and defense is high. Alcoholism is
| rampant, all sorts of personal acting out / implosions are
| frequent. (High-flyer prosecutors and corp counsel people in
| local government are looking for money indirectly through
| political aspirations or access.)
|
| It's the price of admission to working your way into a more
| elite strata of society. It's much harder than the old
| fashioned way.
|
| People who find a less lucrative, but sustainable, niche are
| like any other professional.
| gyulai wrote:
| Though: Software Engineering is not doing all that well on
| the mental health front either, as far as professions go. See
| [1] which I found kind of shocking, though I don't know what
| those numbers look like for other professions or in the
| general population.
|
| [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-
| demog...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Software Engineering is an appealing profession for people
| with several of the issues on this list (in particular:
| social anxiety, ADHD, spectrum disorders) so this is not
| surprising.
|
| You are mixing up cause and effect; working as a developer
| is not causing ADHD, bi-polar disorder or spectrum
| disorders.
| gyulai wrote:
| Good point.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Why would anyone admit something like that in public?
| smegsicle wrote:
| yeah all my friends who are patent lawyers would be horrified
| if anyone thought that they had previously been engineers
| geoffcline wrote:
| Worked as patent agent. Back in tech AMA.
|
| + extremely independent + lots of reading about different
| subjects + less time working on tooling or "chores" + admin to
| manage your calendar - much higher productivity expectations than
| tech - high intensity - varied knowledge of attorneys
| openknot wrote:
| How useful, and how common, would a PhD in life sciences
| (biology/biochemistry/genetics/etc.) to become a patent agent?
| I anecdotally heard and read of a few people who struggled to
| find industry work with that degree, and were then recommended
| to try and become patent agents/attorneys as the PhD should
| allegedly give them an advantage in work applications.
| richardfontana wrote:
| From what I observed back when I was working at IP-specialty
| firms, it's pretty common and a credential that would be
| sought after. I think in the life sciences area, if you
| wanted to get into patent agent work and _didn 't_ have a PhD
| it might be difficult to get a position. By contrast, in
| other technical fields having a PhD is relatively uncommon
| among patent agents. I don't know to what degree my highly
| negative view of patent prosecution work carries over to the
| life sciences area, although I believe the "two class system"
| exists there as well.
| pomian wrote:
| Know someone with PhD in chemistry that went into to law,
| then onto patent law. It seemed a long road. Then it took
| awhile to become accepted. However, here we are 15-20 years
| later, and they work as much as want to work. Interesting, is
| that they are registered (holds bar?) In a few States and
| countries.
| cybernoodles wrote:
| Could you elaborate on the much higher productivity
| expectations? Also, which part of it was high intensity?
| dmoy wrote:
| For the lawyer side:
|
| My dad did a transition from Mech E to patent lawyer, but super
| early in his career. Basically to the point where he didn't work
| much professionally as a mechanical engineer. My understanding is
| it's very different, but he _really_ likes patent law. It
| requires a much greater interest in digging through legal
| history, and an even greater emphasis on writing than engineering
| does.
|
| From my perspective (working as an engineer, growing up hearing
| everything about patent law):
|
| If you like the building stuff part, stick with engineering.
|
| If you like the debugging / analysis / almost-audit-like side of
| tech, and aren't scared by a giant reel of red tape (and as
| mentioned before like history digging and writing), then maybe
| patent law would be for you.
|
| If you get good enough, you may be able to affect changes in the
| red tape even.
|
| I can't really say much about the patent agent side.
| gumby wrote:
| When was in the pharma field I worked with a patent agent who had
| an M.D. and a PhD. She was outstanding -- really made a huge
| difference to the quality of our patents. She worked for one of
| the major law firms.
|
| However I can confirm what others have written: she was at the
| bottom of the hierarchy. They treated her as if she were a
| paralegal.
|
| This wasn't about _her_ specifically -- we had a bunch of
| partners and associates working on our thicket of IP over the
| years: men and women from all sorts of national and social
| backgrounds. Despite her extensive education they considered her
| skills as simply mechanical.
|
| PS: they charged as much for her time as a junior associate. I
| doubt she got paid as much though.
| formvoltron wrote:
| literally nobody.
| D13Fd wrote:
| I agree with the others who say that being a patent agent is kind
| of a dead end job unless you want to go be an attorney.
|
| Even patent attorneys who do prosecution, however, are in for
| kind of a grind. Again as others mentioned, it's often either
| fixed-fee or low-billable-rate work, and the client often won't
| know the difference between a really great patent and a mediocre
| one.
|
| To me the real fun is in patent litigation, where you sue or
| defend lawsuits in federal court. That is where the rubber hits
| the road and patents are really tested. To get a job there, you
| mainly need a law degree from a good or great school and
| excellent grades, although a tech background (or a background as
| a patent agent) can help.
| chmod775 wrote:
| As far as made-up "bullshit jobs" go in this society, patent
| lawyers are likely well-positioned on the compensation scale, but
| if you enjoy actually building something and having some fruit of
| your labor to show at the end of the day, it might not be a good
| place for an engineer.
|
| You'll be "solving" a problem that is the result of a completely
| artificial and particularly badly designed system. Such jobs can
| get to you as you curse the stupidity of the people who came up
| with and run that system daily.
|
| That said - as long as nothing changes - someone has to do the
| job.
| JTbane wrote:
| I don't think I could personally make it as a lawyer in any
| capacity; from those I have talked to in the legal profession
| it seems like 100% pushing papers around.
|
| Also, I don't agree with patents in a political sense.
| D13Fd wrote:
| It's not mindless "pushing papers around" -- that job is done
| by paralegals and administrative assistants.
|
| But 50-100% of most attorneys' time is spent either "reading
| things," "researching things," or "writing things," if that
| is what you mean. That is the bread and butter of legal work
| these days, whether it's writing briefs, e-mails, letters or
| something else, and reading legal opinions, research
| materials, discovery, etc.
|
| Basically most of your job as a patent litigator is to read
| things and occasionally depose people, then research things,
| then write things (not always in that order). The remainder
| of time is mostly spent on client communications and
| marketing.
|
| Occasionally you may make it to trial or a mock trial, where
| you spend a lot more time on your feet and speaking (or
| sitting and listening while someone else speaks), but still
| generally around 25-50%+ of your trial time is spent reading
| and writing.
| [deleted]
| josephmosby wrote:
| I've got a friend who made the transition.
|
| Ultimately, he went to law school because he didn't feel there
| was career growth as just a patent agent... you've got to be a
| full-on attorney if you want growth in that marketplace.
|
| I'm recalling a little bit of his rationale, but it seems that if
| you're curious about the law, it's a decent way to get exposure
| without the total commitment of law school, and you get paid
| while you're learning. But don't think of it as a "career
| transition" unless you're going totally into the law, it's more
| like an experiment to see if that's a direction you'd want to
| take. You'd still have to go to law school and pass the bar if
| you want to make a career out of it.
|
| (advice is U.S.-based)
| busterarm wrote:
| I would agree that the real money is always in being a lawyer.
|
| Also if you have web development & SEO skills, legal marketing
| is stupidly lucrative and you need to be a lawyer to actually
| take advantage of co-counsel fees. You could advertise personal
| injury on the side and outsource your case qualifying to a few
| big firms and just collect money by selling leads.
|
| (I worked at a law firm doing exactly this for 3 years)
| alexpotato wrote:
| Any sources you recommend for learning more about legal
| marketing?
|
| I remember reading about Cellino and Barnes and their use of
| TV ads and found that fascinating so would be interesting to
| learn more about the current state of affairs.
| busterarm wrote:
| I don't really know that there's much written about it.
| Lawyers tend to keep business models close to their chest
| and it was very much a learn by doing kind of thing.
|
| When I took the job there was certainly a period of "mind
| blown" while I learned more and more about the industry but
| I had the perfect position to learn the industry.
|
| For online advertising, all of the core skills about
| keyword bidding and targeting apply. Terrestrial marketing
| is vastly more effective in the legal space though and
| while more expensive (TV), billboard and radio/podcast
| pricing has come down significantly.
|
| Really it's all about coming up with your own effective
| price model and making sure you can measure the
| effectiveness of your campaigns. Most law firms are vastly
| overspending compared to what they actually need to but
| they're spending in places that bring in so much money that
| they can literally throw money away at this. If you're data
| driven you can make a fortune here and there's tons of
| existing firms (and a small but growing group of marketing
| consultancies) to partner with if needed.
|
| Having technical skills and a JD will make people want to
| work/partner with you.
| fatnoah wrote:
| I came very close do doing this in the early 2000's. Though my
| degree was in Electrical Engineering, my professional career has
| been all software. (Full disclosure: I was actually a double
| major, but was a semester shy of finishing CS and finishing EE
| meant I had to graduate).
|
| As others have noted, your degree will determine whether you can
| actually sit for the patent bar and be a registered patent agent.
| Certain degrees or showing equivalent level of training are
| required.
|
| geofcline's comment covers the high level differences (+
| extremely independent + lots of reading about different subjects
| + less time working on tooling or "chores" + admin to manage your
| calendar - much higher productivity expectations than tech - high
| intensity - varied knowledge of attorneys) so I'm going to talk
| about the part of the process I know about.
|
| When I applied to college, I couldn't decide between Engineering
| and Law. I ended up going with Engineering, but 5 years into my
| career it was time to change jobs, so I figured I might as well
| try the law route. The path I chose was to become a Technology
| Specialist (or similarly worded role) at a big law firm.
|
| A Technology Specialist was someone with an Engineering degrees
| who helped the actual patent attorneys evaluate and draft
| patents. The law firm would pay a salary (only about 5% than my
| Engineering salary at the time) and would both pay for law school
| and guarantee you a job after school. At the time, starting
| attorney salary was about 50% more than my current salary, so
| that was quite a deal.
|
| I sent out 5 resumes, got 3 interviews, and one job offer. I
| joined a firm and was one of about 25 Technology Specialists.
| Here's where it got interesting. I was very unique in that I had
| a) actual experience b) a degree that wasn't biology or chemistry
| and c) the only one with _only_ a master's degree. Every other
| "tech spec" was a PhD that noped out of post-doc life of long
| hours and low pay for long hours and high pay. I later found out
| that CS/EE types were a harder sell because they typically had to
| take a pay cut to join.
|
| While I saw some cool and innovative tech, and got to meet some
| names that anyone in tech at the time would know, I saw just as
| much bogus business process and software patent work. I had a
| beautiful office with city views and an amazing secretary (patent
| secretary itself is a skilled, well-paying role), and billed out
| at $250/hour. The job itself was fairly boring, though. I worked
| mostly by myself and was creating nothing. After a year I went
| back to tech and joined a startup.
|
| FWIW, the life of an attorney doing patent prosecution seemed
| much more chill than those doing litigation. I think part of the
| reason is that there are only so many people with advanced
| engineering degrees required to be understand and write patents
| who also want to be lawyers. For myself, I showed up at 7am to
| take a couple hours to study for the LSAT, and I generally stayed
| until 5:30pm to take advantage of free dinner in the cafeteria.
| The office (and this was early 2000's, so not a ton of WFH tech)
| was generally empty before 9 and after 6.
| sbilstein wrote:
| a friend of mine went from working in oil extraction field
| engineering to being a patent agent. he does a lot of reviewing
| applications, finding prior art, and analysis of the inventions.
|
| it's interesting to him since he is always coming across curious
| inventions and applications but otherwise it seems like a pretty
| dead end career. he is particularly unambitious so i think the
| lack of pressure other than "review this stuff" is pretty nice
| for him.
|
| I wouldn't trade being a builder to be a paper pusher.
| richardfontana wrote:
| FWIW: IAAL and I also have a CS educational background but never
| really worked as an engineer outside of academia. I spent a few
| years in the middle of my legal career working primarily on
| patent prosecution, which is the work also done by patent agents.
|
| I would personally not recommend patent prosecution to any lawyer
| or aspiring lawyer. Patent prosecutors hold a second class status
| within the legal profession, something I only realized when I
| started working in that area. The work is inherently challenging
| (in a bad way) in a typical law firm context resulting largely
| from the fact that it is generally fixed-fee work (with those
| fees generally having been driven down over a long period of
| time) in a context where lawyers have nominal billable hour
| expectations. You are under pressure to churn out patent
| applications in a relatively short period of time. I believe this
| is one of the main reasons for problems in patent quality seen
| particularly in the software space over the past two decades. The
| work itself is highly non-intellectual in nature.
|
| Maybe the considerations are different for a patent agent who
| doesn't intend to go to law school. Some firms will pay for
| patent agents to go to law school part time which could be
| beneficial if the patent agent were to graduate and go into some
| other specialty (but I suspect that hardly ever happens).
|
| Edit to add a related point: For anyone with a scientific or
| engineering background who goes to law school, I recommend
| resisting the temptation to take the USPTO's patent bar exam
| (this exam is also incidentally something patent agents take). It
| might seem to be a useful credential, but by becoming a
| registered patent attorney, you will get pigeonholed into a
| patent prosecution practice group within a law firm, which is
| problematic for the reasons I give above.
| syedkarim wrote:
| From my observations, I think patent _litigation_ is pretty
| high up on the legal totem pole. Patent lawyers who focus on
| actual litigation (through federal district courts, as opposed
| to the USPTO PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board) are
| responsible for cases that have legal fees at the $10M-level.
| But to support your point, a trial attorney who focuses on
| patent litigation is not necessarily a patent lawyer (though
| can be). There is a sort of arbitration at the PTAB for patent
| disputes, which does require a USPTO-registered attorney, but
| that 's a process that is cheaper for all parties involved, so
| it's less money for the law firm. I assume those lawyers have
| less prestige at larger firms.
|
| From my experience, patent lawyers who focus on patent
| prosecution bill at rate ~$300 - $500; patent litigators are
| $500 - $1000 (and I'm sure some litigators are much higher).
| D13Fd wrote:
| This is accurate. Patent litigation is at the top and pulls
| the most fees by far.
|
| Of course, it can also be very challenging. Setting aside
| troll/NPE cases, you're sometimes competing against the best
| attorneys at the best firms in the country, in cases where
| the amounts of revenue at stake vastly exceed any amount that
| the attorneys could reasonably bill (even at the typical
| rates of $500-$1500/hr).
| dmoy wrote:
| My dad told me a story once about being paid for expert
| witnessing for patent expertise.
|
| The short version was that some company's legal team was
| looking to hire him for expert witnessing. They knew who he
| was, and had a rough idea of his opinion already, and _knew
| that he was more or less opposed to their position_. So he
| asked them why they 'd be willing to pay $?!?/hr for him to
| read stuff and tell them that he thought they were wrong.
|
| They basically told him "if paying you $?!?!? allows us
| some insight into the opposition's potential strategy that
| lets us file a motion that just delays a ruling from
| morning until after noon recess, that will recoup all the
| costs we pay you". And apparently they weren't even
| exaggerating because in half a day they pulled over an
| order of magnitude more than $?!?!? in sales.
|
| Evidently this sort of paying experts who disagree with you
| to help form your case strategy is just a normal thing, and
| it makes sense to me, I just couldn't fathom the numbers at
| the time. The amount of money specifically in drug patent
| cases is staggering. There is a long, long list of drugs
| that pull in over a billion dollars a year in sales.
|
| The US's total (legal) drug market is like half a trillion
| dollars.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Don't discount the nice side effect that when you hire
| the opposing parties' best possible expert, they are then
| precluded from working for the other side.
| richardfontana wrote:
| Agreed. For those who don't know, the term "patent
| prosecution" is US legal industry jargon referring to the
| process of applying for and obtaining a patent. The term is
| used as a shorthand to refer to a common specialty area that
| focuses on that kind of work and certain related non-
| litigation matters. Patent prosecution specialists sometimes
| also get involved in litigation but typically in a secondary
| or supporting role. This to some degree reflects the two-
| class system I referred to. From personal experience and
| anecdote it is common for patent prosecution specialists to
| seek to get involved in litigation because, essentially, it
| is "easier to make your hours" as I remember one colleague
| putting it, but often opportunities are limited because of
| the unofficial two-class system that exists.
|
| Patent litigation is an important sub-area of litigation work
| and practitioners in that area are not especially likely to
| have STEM backgrounds (unlike patent prosecution specialists)
| and are not expected to be USPTO-registered. You can see
| evidence of the two-class system in the academic backgrounds
| of the lawyers involved -- patent prosecution specialists are
| more likely to have attended less prestigious law schools
| than the patent litigation specialists at a given firm. It's
| my sense that outside the US the equivalent of patent
| prosecution lawyers are typically not members of the legal
| profession and often work in small firms focused entirely on
| patent and trademark procurement grunt work.
| gyulai wrote:
| I'm in the process of attempting this. I'm taking some classes at
| law school, but I'm only studying towards the Bachelor of Laws,
| not towards the kind of university credential that you need as a
| prerequisite for being allowed to sit the bar exam to become a
| real lawyer. I'm instead using it as an opportunity to try to
| find ways of combining tech knowledge and legal knowledge and
| getting interesting work out of it that draws on both but doesn't
| require a bar exam.
|
| I think there are some interesting avenues opening up there,
| around Legal Tech and also around the general fact that I expect
| that tech will become more compliance-driven in the future.
|
| I mean: When I started out in the field, it was pretty much this
| unregulated wild west. When I retire, I expect that working in a
| tech company will feel a lot like working in a bank does today.
| In a bank, lawyers and law-savvy managers are hugely influential,
| because everyone else struggles to navigate all the nuance of the
| regulation that affects them, and it's not even just about money,
| but about potentially going to jail or not.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Word of caution. UC Davis computer science graduates could not do
| patent law when I wanted to. Why? Because the dean Norman S.
| Matloff didn't fill out the paper work. So - "computer science"
| wasn't considered an engineering field at the time. It gets
| worse, I was the only one to make the request EVER. Make sure you
| research if your computer science department would be considered
| a valid engineering bachelors under the patent law offices. You
| may be able to talk to the dean to spend the time and get it
| done.
| D13Fd wrote:
| Yes. If you want to practice patent prosecution you need to
| pass the patent bar, and the patent bar is only available to a
| narrow and kind of weird set of engineering degrees.
|
| Only some computer science degrees count, and only some degrees
| with "engineering" in the title count. The patent office is
| usually very strict with this and is not interested in hearing
| about why your degree should count.
|
| They do offer alternative methods of qualifying based on the
| specific numbers of credits you have in certain classes, but
| that too is fairly strict.
| hkhanna wrote:
| I went from being a biomedical engineer -> M&A lawyer -> software
| engineer with a side legal practice.
|
| I learned that law school was intellectually rewarding and the
| practice of law can be fun, but I could not stop thinking about
| software that I wanted to build to improve the practice of law. I
| took that as a sign that I needed to spend some of my working
| life being a software engineer.
|
| I think what I have now is a great balance. A stable job as an
| engineer, with a law practice where I only take on clients that
| are nice to work with.
| marktheknife wrote:
| What was your road into software engineering? I'm a lawyer now,
| and make pretty good money, but I can't quit the thoughts of
| how much better legal tech could make it. So I've found myself
| interested in software but not wanting to drop my pay...at
| least for too long.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| What was your route towards biomedical engineer? That's the
| route that I find most interesting right now - especially as
| I'm getting older. Seeing lots of family in ill health and lots
| of new medical info we're getting from then pandemic
| ska wrote:
| > What was your route towards biomedical engineer?
|
| These days you can do an undergrad or masters level
| specialization in biomed, but that hasn't been true for very
| long. People make there way their from all sorts of paths,
| including (pretty often) mid-career moves.
|
| One thing that impacts it is you are typically working in a
| regulated industry, so it's easier to make the change if you
| have some experience in this. This can be more of a jump for
| people in software who may haven never seen formal
| engineering practices. This sounds scarier/more annoying than
| it is (or at least, than it has to be)
|
| Contrary to some comments here, pay wise it seems to mostly
| be pretty middle of the pack. Nobody that I know of is going
| head-to-head with FAANG for "pure" software roles, but
| overall seems comparable to similar jobs.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > What was your route towards biomedical engineer?
|
| My guess is bachelors in an engineering field, particularly
| biomedical engineering.
|
| Sadly I think they fall on the lower pay end for engineering
| fields.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Lower end of pay and almost zilch for job opportunities
| without a PhD, at least in the US.
| epmaybe wrote:
| I see that a lot, and as a former biomedical engineer I
| would like to reframe this a bit.
|
| Regardless of field of study in college, be it
| engineering, humanities, science, etc, you learn valuable
| skills that are almost certainly applicable to beyond
| your field of study. I for one saw many of my peers enter
| software engineering roles, project manager roles, or
| even consulting roles that all pay well, likely 80-100k+
| right out of college. Speaking to my siblings who
| graduated a year ago, they appear to concur, and many are
| being paid more. Could this be a factor of _where_ you go
| to college? Perhaps, but I 'd argue it's also a bit about
| selling yourself to wherever you are trying to go.
|
| Additionally, there are many folks that obtain further
| specialization in a different area of study via a
| graduate degree, such as a PhD like you mentioned, but
| also Master's level degrees. They can do biomedical
| engineering in undergrad, pursue other engineering
| master's, and succeed in their desired career. I found
| many peers that pursued this route especially for
| computer science.
|
| To further push against the thought that biomedical
| engineers are without opportunity: The US Bureau of Labor
| Statistics states the mean annual wage of biomedical
| engineers is around $98,000, and the growth projections
| are around 6% over the next ten years, while lower than
| the average of 8%, is not "bad".
|
| Would certainly like to see any other anecdotes from
| other biomedical engineers to refute or support my
| statements above; I'm no longer an engineer and thus my
| insight is likely limited compared to currently employed
| engineers.
| hkhanna wrote:
| That's exactly right. Bachelors & Masters in biomedical
| engineering. The pay is not great, even with an advanced
| degree!
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| haha yea but I have a feeling it will change in the
| future as the boomers age. I've looked at Bioinformatics
| and Genomics. Looks like a way easier route for software
| devs to get into the field and the pay I constantly read
| is that it's so low!
| swayvil wrote:
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| i heard being a patent lawyer is super boring
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