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[Jim_W]

Hi guys, here's my situation:
2009 T50 grad, middle of my class, booked patent prosecution, spent some time at the USPTO, passed state bar/patent bar first try, boom, I'm a patent attorney. I'm located in the southeast but I'm willing to relocate anywhere.

My tech background is a mix of biology and computer science. Spent 8 years as a software engineer, doing application development.

Since I graduated, I've been working at a small firm doing litigation. Some criminal work, lots of small time civil litigation, but it's all real trial experience. Nothing patent related though, which is the bummer.

I want to do patent prosecution or patent litigation and despite my efforts (which may well be misdirected for all I know) I haven't been able to land a patent related job.

So here is the question:
How do I get a patent related job? I'm worried that I'm looking in the wrong way or in the wrong places. It's really beginning to get to me. I'm worried that if I don't break into the patent field soon, eventually I'm going to be pigeonholed as a generic shitlaw practitioner and shut out of the field. I feel the time to move is now, but I'm not seeing a clear path forward.

[bleedingpen]

My tech background is a mix of biology and computer science. Spent 8 years as a software engineer, doing application development.

No one else has answered, so I will give it a shot.  The quoted material above is what concerns me the most.  I am betting that you have a BS in biology/chemistry/etc and have years of programming experience.  Is that correct? 

[Jim_W]

Yeah. I was premed back in the day even though I was a programmer. Computer science would have been too big a hassle to fit into a premed curriculum, almost like taking a double major.

[bleedingpen]

Yeah. I was premed back in the day even though I was a programmer. Computer science would have been too big a hassle to fit into a premed curriculum, almost like taking a double major.

Good luck.  I think the lack of a comp sci/comp eng/EE degree is a deal breaker for most. 

[Jim_W]

That seems like such a petty reason. Either you understand the concepts or you don't. A degree has nothing to do with it. Come to think of it, I've met lots of older patent attorneys that have prosecuted well outside their official area of expertise.

So anyway, how do I get around this? Are there any circumstances under which this isn't a deal-breaker? This is profoundly aggravating.

[bleedingpen]

That seems like such a petty reason. Either you understand the concepts or you don't. A degree has nothing to do with it. Come to think of it, I've met lots of older patent attorneys that have prosecuted well outside their official area of expertise.

So anyway, how do I get around this? Are there any circumstances under which this isn't a deal-breaker? This is profoundly aggravating.

It's all about what can be sold to clients.  It is a whole lot easier to sell a firm's comp sci capabilities if the attorneys have comp sci degrees.  I get the impression that it hasn't always been this way, but it is now.

The only way that I know of to get around this is to go and get a comp sci or similar degree.  Sure you might find a firm here or there that doesn't follow the "have a certain tech degree or else" approach, but they are few and far between.

I suspect this isn't the first time that you have heard this either.

[Jim_W]

Well where the hell am I supposed too get a comp sci degree? Most degrees are full of filler that has nothing to do with the actual degree itself. I'd be putting myself out four years and tens of thousands of dollars (even assuming it could be done that cheap) just so some firm can put an extra line of text on a brochure for a skill I already have.

Is there a cheap, non-time-intensive way to get a CS degree (that doesn't involve fraud/lying/etc), even one that is completely worthless from an educational standpoint? edit: ie, one that would be good enough for a firm without subjecting me to great inconvenience/cost.

[bleedingpen]

I think there are several good (and cheap) online programs that award the exact same diploma as do the traditional colleges. 

I also sent you a pm. 

[blakesq]

what have you done so far to try to get a job as a patent attorney? Having a BS in biology will make it tough, but not impossible.   

That seems like such a petty reason. Either you understand the concepts or you don't. A degree has nothing to do with it. Come to think of it, I've met lots of older patent attorneys that have prosecuted well outside their official area of expertise.

So anyway, how do I get around this? Are there any circumstances under which this isn't a deal-breaker? This is profoundly aggravating.

[OMG IP]

That seems like such a petty reason. Either you understand the concepts or you don't. A degree has nothing to do with it. Come to think of it, I've met lots of older patent attorneys that have prosecuted well outside their official area of expertise.

So anyway, how do I get around this? Are there any circumstances under which this isn't a deal-breaker? This is profoundly aggravating.

petty reason?  employers need to sift through the riff raff... the first way to do so is compare degrees.  Short sighted?  maybe.  Highly efficient and proven?  Yes.

How do you get around it?  Get out there and get your own clients.

[Jim_W]

I regularly scour all the places that list patent attorney jobs.
I search places that post jobs in general, keeping an eye out for anything IP related.
I also semi-regularly go down lists of law firms in cities I know to have patent activity and search their websites for job listings.

Should I be applying to biology related positions only or going for the type of work I actually intend to do?

My attitude, based on getting into a career with no degree (ie, becoming a paid programmer with no CS degree) is that once I'm actually working at a place that has patent attorneys, I can quickly prove my worth and advance regardless of the degree issue. The problem is that every door seems to be closed. Part of me suspects this is the economy at work, but another part of me is worried that it is my failure to pursue some course of action that will remedy my problem.

How do you get around it?  Get out there and get your own clients.

All the potential clients I've come across experience intense pain if you ask them to part company with more than a nickel. I'm in an area that doesn't have much inventive activity going on. I think I'm probably the only active patent attorney in my county.

Why am in such a desolate area? Really an accident of the post-law-school scramble to find a job so I didn't end up like the guys who get out of law school, don't get a job and end up completely unemployable as attorneys. At least this way I can get a little trial experience and delude myself that I'm getting some sort of value from my law degree.

[tkfx2000]

I am in the same position. I am a patent attorney with no Comp Sci degree. I have programmed computers for 19 years. My BS is in Chemistry. I chose not to get a CS degree because at the time, it would be similar to getting a degree in the german when you already speak the language.  Take solice in the fact that, when you learn patent prosecution, you will find that most Comp Sci patent attorneys have no clue as to what they are writing. They do not understand computer programing and it is obvious in the patents they draft, at least to those patent attorneys that do understand programming.

This should not be a suprise. Look at the typical patent attorney career path: A person studies for a BS degree, then goes to law school, and then is hired to draft claims on cutting edge technology without ever having worked in engineering or science.

That is a recipe for low quality and cheap labour.

 Getting a job is all about what the piece of paper says you can do, not what you can actually do. This is how the legal profession works. Brand above all. Your degree defines your brand;otherwise there would be less emphasis on which law school you attended as a measure of your worth. You would instead be hired on your ability. With the current law school system, it is hard to measure an individuals ability, so the school name largely defines success.  There is no consideration given to the hurdles a candidate must pass to get where they are, even though that is a far better judge of ones potential.

In fairness, some will argue that some critera must be used to screen the high number of applicants recieved in todays job market. This is a true. It is why the best way into a job, for you, is going to be networking and building relationships more than blanketing the market with resumes.
 

[Jim_W]

One thing that I noticed when I was interning at the PTO was that a huge portion of computer science applications appeared to have been written either by morons or written by people who thought I was a moron and would not realize that something like "increment an integer" or "compare two values" are actually fairly well known in the art. I'd have to go dig up my notes to remember more examples, but when I actually saw something written by a person who understood real world computer science, it sort of leapt out at me.

What's hilarious is that clients think they are getting more value by hiring a 25 year old whose only software engineering knowledge comes from completing inane assignments in Scheme or assembler as opposed to writing code in perl, java or C++ to solve real world problems.

Well I'm going to take a break from this thread for a while before I slit my wrists in frustration.

[khazzah]

This should not be a suprise. Look at the typical patent attorney career path: A person studies for a BS degree, then goes to law school, and then is hired to draft claims on cutting edge technology without ever having worked in engineering or science.

That is a recipe for low quality and cheap labour.

I'd be careful there. There are almost certainly some posters on this forum -- good sources of information -- that fit your description and who don't appreciate being called "low quality".

There's also a flaw in your argument. Namely, if you worked in engineering at one point before becoming a patent attorney, then by the time you graduate -- and certainly by the time you really know what you're doing in patent law -- then your work experience is way out of date.

Your argument almost suggests that you get "high quality" patent drafters from folks who are still practicing engineers, because they're actively participating in the technology. Yet practicing engineers don't do patents every day, so how can they produce "high quality" patent?

[bleedingpen]

I regularly scour all the places that list patent attorney jobs.
I search places that post jobs in general, keeping an eye out for anything IP related.
I also semi-regularly go down lists of law firms in cities I know to have patent activity and search their websites for job listings.

Nearly no one is going to have postings on their websites or on job websites for first years or those without patent experience.  That is a recipe for a resume dump.