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Written by : Yesenia Connaughton |
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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
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
About the author
I've studied evolutionary economics at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven and I am an expert in sociology of aging. I usually feel drained. My previous job was security guard I held this position for 27 years, I love talking about robot combat and needle point. Huge fan of Jim Carrey I practice rugby league and collect chemical elements.
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