Best engineering degree for patent law [With Tutorial]



Last updated : Sept 25, 2022
Written by : Yesenia Connaughton
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Best engineering degree for patent law

What is the best degree for patent law?

What Should I Major in to Become a Patent Attorney ? Most patent attorneys, 36% to be exact, major in law. Some other common majors for a patent attorney include legal research and advanced professional studies and electrical engineering majors.

Where do patent lawyers get paid the most?

  • San Francisco, CA. $170,060 per year. 7 salaries reported.
  • $161,212 per year. 6 salaries reported.
  • Washington, DC. $161,109 per year. 5 salaries reported.
  • Boston, MA. $159,075 per year. 8 salaries reported.
  • Seattle, WA. $156,366 per year.
  • Show more nearby cities.

How much do top patent lawyers make?

Salary Ranges for Patent Attorneys The salaries of Patent Attorneys in the US range from $24,826 to $668,655 , with a median salary of $120,348 . The middle 57% of Patent Attorneys makes between $120,349 and $303,088, with the top 86% making $668,655.

How do you become a patent agent in the US?

  1. Earn your bachelor's degree. After graduating from college, you must enroll in a science or technology bachelor's degree program.
  2. Pass the Law School Admission Test.
  3. Apply to law school.
  4. Take the state patent bar exam.
  5. Submit all documents and pay necessary fees.

Is becoming a patent lawyer worth it?

However, going to law school and passing the bar exam leads to an even more lucrative career as a patent attorney. Patent attorneys typically earn more than $133K a year, while the median salary for careers in engineering does not pay anything comparable to that amount unless you are an experienced petroleum engineer.

Is patent law stressful?

Stress may come in the form of long working hours, demanding clients, and tight deadlines, but that is true for any law firm. You may enjoy the job aspect where you interact with clients and their creative ideas, discussing their invention, and researching the likelihood of successfully attaining a patent.

Is patent law bar exam hard?

Despite being an open book exam, the patent bar exam is one of the toughest in the country, with less than 50% passing since 2013. Many students put in additional hours post-course of study but still feel like they're ill-prepared and nervous on exam day.

What type of lawyer makes the most money?

  • Medical Lawyers – Average $138,431. Medical lawyers make one of the highest median wages in the legal field.
  • Intellectual Property Attorneys – Average $128,913.
  • Trial Attorneys – Average $97,158.
  • Tax Attorneys – Average $101,204.
  • Corporate Lawyers – $116,361.

Who is the highest paid lawyer?

  • Tax attorney (tax law): $122,000.
  • Corporate lawyer: $115,000.
  • Employment lawyer: $87,000.
  • Real Estate attorney: $86,000.
  • Divorce attorney: $84,000.
  • Immigration attorney: $84,000.
  • Estate attorney: $83,000.
  • Public Defender: $63,000.

How much do lawyers in Silicon Valley make?

The estimated salary for a lawyer is $65,186 per year in Silicon Valley, CA.

How many patent attorneys are there in the US?

Of roughly 1.3 million licensed US attorneys,7 United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) records identify only about 34,000 as being registered patent attorneys—less than 3 percent of all licensed attorneys in the country.

How much do patent agents make in us?

Average base salary The average salary for a patent agent is $123,682 per year in the United States. 52 salaries reported, updated at July 21, 2022.

Do lawyers make more than engineers?

Engineers can expect an average salary of $78,000, while lawyers can earn between $80,000 and $150,000.

How long should you study for the patent bar?

Our experience and customer surveys have taught us that it takes about 150-200 hours of study using our course for a student to pass the exam.

How does an engineer become a patent agent?

Patent Agent – while working as a Patent Engineer, you may take the Patent Bar exam. Patent Engineers can take the Patent Bar exam within 2 years of beginning at HFZ. Patent Engineers who pass this exam become Patent Agents and are registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Is it hard to get a patent attorney job?

Competition for trainee patent attorney positions is tough. Each firm only takes between one and six new trainees a year. To maximise your chances, don't just apply to one firm. Most firms will have details of how to apply to them on their websites.

Is it hard to get a job as a patent agent?

A patent agent or attorney must take an extremely difficult examination with a very low pass rate to become eligible for admission. The patent bar is officially called the Examination for Registration to Practice in Patent Cases Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Do you need a PhD to become a patent attorney?

You don't have to be a genius, but academic qualifications are valued. You may have to get your head round some extremely complex and technical patents in your working life. Around 60% of patent attorney trainees have a postgraduate qualification and around half of these have a PhD.

How has your degree prepare you for a career as a patent attorney?

If you want to become a Patent Attorney, you must have a degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering or maths) subject. It's important to have a thorough science/engineering background so that you can understand a client's invention, idea or concept.

Are patent agents in demand?

Patent agents are in high demand as individuals and corporations continue to formulate new ideas and inventions. In an increasingly technology-based society, there's an influx of inventions and the need to secure them as one's intellectual property. Patent agents' opportunities for career advancement are good, as well.


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Best engineering degree for patent law


Comment by Trinidad Savitsky

Electrical Engineering is in almost every aspect of our lives now that's a lot more than just circuits and wiring it's about communication and antennas and how our cell phones work I decided electrical engineering partly because of the need for electrical engineers but also because I want to go to law school there are not a lot of people who have a Bachelor of Science in engineering degree that are seeking law and patent law is incredibly important to innovation in this country a lot of patents right now are in the realm of electrical engineering and there's a lot of innovation there with antennas and wireless communication I realize that patent engineering might be a really good path for me it would allow me to be a lifelong learner I think my path at Mainz is incredibly advantageous to this choice one of the most important things that I've learned that I am capable of anything that I put my mind to


Thanks for your comment Trinidad Savitsky, have a nice day.
- Yesenia Connaughton, Staff Member


Comment by flytimansB

hey pat and friends welcome back to another video one of the biggest questions i get especially related to my videos regarding patent attorney careers is what are the best technical backgrounds to have to become a patent attorney so this video is going to explain technical backgrounds and how to become a patent attorney and what technical backgrounds are going to be good and what ones aren't going to be quite as good so stick around we are starting right now so for those of you who are new here my name is dylan adams i am a patent attorney and author of the best-selling book patents demystified which is an insider's guide to protecting ideas and inventions used by inventors entrepreneurs startups and even law students and people wanting to become patent attorneys worldwide including at top universities like harvard stanford and mit so this channel i talk some about patent training careers but a lot of times i talk about general patent stuff including how i help my clients like inventors entrepreneurs and startups protect their ideas and inventions and so this video is going to focus on careers but be sure to subscribe the channel if you're looking for that sort of content got a lot of great additional stuff like that here one of the biggest things i want to say right off the bat is that i don't want to be discouraging this video and if you have one of the technical backgrounds you're looking to get a technical background in some of the things that maybe you know i'm pointing out as being less desirable don't let that be an impediment to you you know just because you know you may have a harder time than other people with other degrees doesn't mean that you can't have a viable career in patents so that that should be something that is absolutely clear from the get-go a good place to start is defining what a patent attorney is and why you even need to have a technical background to be a patent attorney in the first place so to be a patent attorney you have to have two things one is you have to have gone to law school and passed the bar in at least one state and you have to have passed what is called the patent bar which is a separate bar that is uh given by the united states patent and trademark office which sort of shows that you have the technical ability to represent clients with their technical inventions before the united states patent and trademark office and that's really why you need to have a technical background one of one of the things that qualifies you to sit for this patent bar is you have to have an undergraduate degree or some sort of advanced degree or sufficient coursework in something technical to be able to show that hey you can represent clients with with high technology ideas or even you know simple ideas you have at least some sort of technical background so that's really why you need to have that technical background it's one to be able to pass the patent bar so you can you know be qualified to be a patent attorney but then two so just on the practical side so you can talk with your clients and understand their technology i mean whether that's really complex computer stuff or biotechnology stuff or even sort of uh simple mechanical things you need to be able to understand those things sufficiently so you can represent folks and then also understand the law portion of things to represent clients at the united states patent and trademark office another important thing to note is that even though you have to go to law school pass the bar and also pass the patent bar to be called a patent attorney you don't actually have to be an attorney to have a career in patent law you can sit for the patent bar if you qualify with a technical background and you'll be called a patent agent and you can do in a lot of ways the same stuff that an attorney can do represent clients before the united states patent trademark office you just can't do the legal side of things so definitely keep that in mind as well when i'm talking about becoming a patent attorney the same advice applies to people who want to be patent agents so let's say you don't want to take the time to go to law school and become an actual attorney or let's say you're planning to go to law school and you're thinking about what you're doing before law school or after undergrad things like that becoming a patent agent and passing the patent by early that's definitely a viable thing to do so you don't have to wait until you actually become a patent attorney to be able to practice patent law you can start out being a patent agent which is actually what i did one thing that helps put this all into context is to understand what patent attorneys really do on a day-to-day basis and what what the work is like so there are really two main things that patent attorneys are going to be doing they're going to be drafting patent applications which are highly technical documents a lot of times i mean they can be you know 100 pages or so of a technical description of an invention they're going to be filing those at the united states patent and trademark office and then working them through the examination process so you file a non-provisional patent application and waits in line for one to three years an examiner picks it up at the uspto because you know just it's the government there's a big long line everything is delayed examiner finally picks it up and does a prior search and determines whether what is claimed in that application is new and non-obvious compared to the prior art that's out there and this negotiation which it should be really thought of as a negation negotiation it's kind of like on american pickers or pawn stars where you're haggling you're going back and forth what the patent journey is trying to do is trying to get the application allowed and trying to show that the claims that they have in the application are new and non-obvious compared to prior art and the examiner is holding us to that standard and says well you know you have to have stuff that is novel and that is not obvious over the prior art and that negotiation can go on you know sometimes it's quick it can be you know easily a first action allowance or it can go on it can go back and forth for sometimes years there can be many back and forth with the examiner through what are called office actions so that's where the technicality of uh you know being a patent attorney comes in it comes into having to understand the technology of your of your client sometimes better than them in a lot of ways i mean i've had times where people you know they really don't have a technical background and we're doing things say in like computers and i kind of have to fill in the gaps in a lot of really technical computer stuff other times i work with people who are top of the field and they are experts and you know i have to come to their level and really understand what's going on so having that technical background is really important to understand the in the the invention and then be able to draft a really detailed description and draft drawings related to it describing insufficient detail that's where the technical back


Thanks flytimansB your participation is very much appreciated
- Yesenia Connaughton


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