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[novobarro]

What's a typical salary for a attorney who prosecutes design patents? same as utility patent prosecution attorneys?

[khazzah]

FWIW, I have never heard of a position for an attorney who deals mostly/solely with design patents.

[bleedingpen]

FWIW, I have never heard of a position for an attorney who deals mostly/solely with design patents.

Agreed, but a lot of scam shops focus heavily on design patent applications, so it is conceivable that those types of places would do enough design patents to warrant a "design patent attorney."

With that said, particularly if my example fits what you are doing, you aren't going to be talking about a 6 figure salary. 

[novobarro]

What do you mean by scam shops?

[MYK]

What do you mean by scam shops?

Invention promotion companies, patent mills, places that prey on the uninformed (I hesitate to call them "terminally stupid").  There are a lot of inventors out there who think that merely filing a provisional application gets them full patent rights, just because they faxed some marketing literature to the USPTO along with the $110 filing fee.  Plus $1000 to the invention promotion firm for the great service.

[novobarro]

any other inputs? I've interviewed with firms in the past that did prosecuted utility and design patents. There were a couple of large firms in the DC area.

[bleedingpen]

any other inputs? I've interviewed with firms in the past that did prosecuted utility and design patents. There were a couple of large firms in the DC area.

I have no idea, but if my firm had enough work to designate one attorney as simply a design patent attorney, they wouldn't be getting normal associate salary- figure 50k a year or so.

[horsechute]

There's a former examiner named Leon Gilden who is on the lam for doing some ethically shady design patent work. Google his name, and you can see for yourself.

Not to say all situations like those discussed in this thread are not above board in the eyes of the law; just that if you come to a branch in the decision tree that feels a little wobbly, find something a little more stable.

[Jonathan]

I want one of those semi-mythical gigs as a patent person that lives in Hawaii just to be available to do extremely last minute paper patent filings, on behalf of a mainland client, just to meet a bar date.. too late in the mainland U.S. but not yet midnight in a U.S. territory in the Pacific.

[MYK]

I want one of those semi-mythical gigs as a patent person that lives in Hawaii just to be available to do extremely last minute paper patent filings, on behalf of a mainland client, just to meet a bar date.. too late in the mainland U.S. but not yet midnight in a U.S. territory in the Pacific.

I thought those had all been offshored to the Marshall Islands.

(Semi-joking -- it's a U.S. territory, but I have no idea if they do Express Mail service there, or how late their post office is open if so.)

[Bosque]

I know that Banner & Witcoff does a substantial amount of design patent work (although I don't know that anyone JUST does design patent work), and they pay $165k starting salary.

[Joe M.]

I have no idea, but if my firm had enough work to designate one attorney as simply a design patent attorney, they wouldn't be getting normal associate salary- figure 50k a year or so.

50k is a normal associate salary? Ouch!

IMHO, being a design patent attorney would be the sweetest gig, provided you can find enough work to keep you busy!

[Peter Song]

There are virtually no firms that focus exclusively on design patents--that's just a bad business model.  Some firms, such as the Saidmann law firm, specialize in design patents, but they also focus on other areas of IP, especially soft IP.  Why are you interested in working only in design patents?  I know some patent attorneys who hated having to learn a new technology so often.  If you are one of these, you may want to consider switching to a career as a trademark attorney.

[patentsusa]

I know that Banner & Witcoff does a substantial amount of design patent work (although I don't know that anyone JUST does design patent work), and they pay $165k starting salary.

A newer associate is going to be given hard projects like arguing against complex rejections in utility patent applications, not easy projects like design patents.  I haven't heard of reputable firms that have one person doing solely design patents.

[maria123]