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[Bahar2054]

I am also contemplating going solo after nearly 5 yrs of experience as a patent agent. My questions are the type of business entity (S Corporation, LLC, LLP, etc.) that would give me the most protection and the type of website that would best fit the profession. Would a website with a fictitious business name and a content that does not identify myself but merely talks about my qualifications work or not?  The reason for wanting to be anonymous being that if things did not work out the way I expected it I can join a law firm and still keep the business running on the side and active if my contract allows it.  I appreciate if you could comment on these points.

[blakesq]

Personally, I would not hire a patent attorney/agent if he kept his identity secret on his website. 

I am also contemplating going solo after nearly 5 yrs of experience as a patent agent. My questions are the type of business entity (S Corporation, LLC, LLP, etc.) that would give me the most protection and the type of website that would best fit the profession. Would a website with a fictitious business name and a content that does not identify myself but merely talks about my qualifications work or not?  The reason for wanting to be anonymous being that if things did not work out the way I expected it I can join a law firm and still keep the business running on the side and active if my contract allows it.  I appreciate if you could comment on these points.

[khazzah]

Personally, I would not hire a patent attorney/agent if he kept his identity secret on his website. 

I'll go farther and say that I don't think most clients would hire someone who didn't identify himself and his credentials on his website.

if things did not work out the way I expected it I can join a law firm and still keep the business running on the side and active if my contract allows it. 

I don't see how identifying yourself to potential clients limits your ability to do this.

[MYK]

Personally, I would not hire a patent attorney/agent if he kept his identity secret on his website. 

I'll go farther and say that I don't think most clients would hire someone who didn't identify himself and his credentials on his website.

You'd be amazed.  Someone recently posted a link to another forum, one geared toward inventors.  There were quite a few posts explaining how wonderful a particular patent firm was -- and the firm was set up in exactly that way, with an anonymous registration, no contact information other than a main email address, and no names anywhere on it.  One inventor even wrote about how he had tried to find out who it was who was drafting his application, and how the web-firm refused to say, only replying that they "don't work that way".

It was very likely, from looking at the website, that this was a foreign operation.  Too many misspellings and not-quite-right phrasings for it to have been a native English speaker.  So, for this great, cheap service, the inventors who use it are setting themselves up to lose their patent rights if they ever get into litigation.

I would've told them, but they aren't allowing new registrations, apparently because of spammers.

[Robert K S]

Aren't there ABA rules that make all kinds of requirements on identifications of attorneys in firms, and even on the name of the firm itself?

[khazzah]

Aren't there ABA rules that make all kinds of requirements on identifications of attorneys in firms, and even on the name of the firm itself?

OP said "5 yrs of experience as a patent agent". So I assume he's still an agent, and therefore only PTO rules of ethics apply. Have no idea what the PTO ethics canons say about this.

[klaviernista]

Aren't there ABA rules that make all kinds of requirements on identifications of attorneys in firms, and even on the name of the firm itself?

OP said "5 yrs of experience as a patent agent". So I assume he's still an agent, and therefore only PTO rules of ethics apply. Have no idea what the PTO ethics canons say about this.

I think you mean that SMG said he was an agent.  I am the OP, and I am an attorney.

[Yak]

I believe he meant Bahar2054, who refreshed this topic from last October.

[khazzah]

I think you mean that SMG said he was an agent.  I am the OP, and I am an attorney.

I believe he meant Bahar2054, who refreshed this topic from last October.

Yeah, yeah, sorry for the confusion :-)

If the guy that asked about websites with no identifying info is an attorney, then I agree with Robert KS that attorney ethics rules may limit his options.