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[Anon]

Like others in these posts, I only have a molecular cell biology undergrad degree. I want to be a patent attorney and will be graduating from law school in the spring. In reviewing the posts, speaking to other students at school, and interviewers in OCI, it appears that those of use who only have undergrad bio degrees are kind of stuck. Medium to large firms only want candidates with a MS or PhD.

I do not want to go to school for another 2-7 years only to get a piece of paper (as I do not want to do academic or research based work).

I am wondering what my options are. Please do not answer along the lines of "do nothing" or "change careers." Please answer constructively.

I am looking to stay near the west or east coasts (I am from California and attend law school in CA). What type of firms should I be looking at and what websites might help me out. Thanks to all who reply. I want to prosecute patents, but I fear that my undergrad degree is not enough for the smaller firms as well

[larkas]

Most firms do want the masters or Ph.D. for biology. Unfortunately, this is what clients want and expect.

You may want to run a Google search like this to find firms that hire people that do not have a masters or a Ph.D:

BS Biology -MS -M.A. patent -Ph.D.

Keep in mind that this only works for firms that have websites (and attorney bios) and the people that were hired may have had extensive industry experience. Add additional terms as necessary -- the minus sign means do not include sites that have the following word.

You should be able to run a similiar search on Martindale-Hubbell -- although M-H doesn't break people down by technical area. You may want to focus on finding simple biological published patent applications or patents and seeing who the attorney of record is. It should be on the front page of the published application or patent. Some of them are probably done by people with only a bachelors. You should be able to do that by searching the appropirate US classes.

You may also want to check with Patent Ratings: http://www.patentratings.com/001/top_10_biot.sv

both to get the biotech classes and to check the websites of all the firms that are there

In addition, you may try and get a job at a patent firm prosecuting simple mechanical inventions. They will be much easier than biological applications and then use your patent prosecution experience to backdoor it into a biological-related position.

[Anon]

Thank you for the info. It is much appreciated.

How about different geographic regions and whether the smaller regions care or not about a PhD or MS? I understand that there is the accompanying problem that these smaller regions also do not have very much bio-related patent work. Any information would be great. I am just trying to expand my options. I do not want to do civil litigation work. ...at all.

[IPLVR]

ANON I was much in the same boat as you, except that I had an undergrad in Biochemistry. Firms want a PhD but will settle for an M.S.  I actually went back to school and got an MS knowing that I will need it in the future. Take a look at major law firms, I doubt that many partners working in the life sciences have just a B.S. At my firm all of them have an advanced degree - at least the ones that graduated in the last 15 years.

[Demian]

There is a (mostly unjustified) prejudice against non-PHd's in the life sciences.  I've always attributed this to the fact there are a lot more unemployed or underpaid Bio PhD's (as compared with CS, EE, etc) that decided to go to law school to earn more money.  As a result of the large supply, firms are able to fill positions by hiring mostly PhD's.

A BS is adequate if you want to do patent litigation, though and I definitely wouldn't tell firms in interviews that you only want to prosecute.  Maybe try and get some PP once you have the job. You might also be able to convince a firm you could do medical device prosecution (which, in my experience, was a lot more enjoyable than the glorified secretarial work that much of pure bio prosecution entails).