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Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#21

Post by alexpotato »

busterarm wrote: post #18
josephmosby wrote: post #3

I've got a friend who made the transition. Ultimately, he went to law school because he didn't feel there was career growth as just a patent agent... you've got to be a full-on attorney if you want growth in that marketplace. I'm recalling a little bit of his rationale, but it seems that if you're curious about the law, it's a decent way to get exposure without the total commitment of law school, and you get paid whi…

I would agree that the real money is always in being a lawyer. Also if you have web development & SEO skills, legal marketing is stupidly lucrative and you need to be a lawyer to actually take advantage of co-counsel fees. You could advertise personal injury on the side and outsource your case qualifying to a few big firms and just collect money by selling leads. (I worked at a law firm doing exactly this for 3 years…

Any sources you recommend for learning more about legal marketing?

I remember reading about Cellino and Barnes and their use of TV ads and found that fascinating so would be interesting to learn more about the current state of affairs.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#22

Post by travisgriggs »

My office mate and good friend of many years is a patent agent. He was/is industrial/electronic/radio but then pursued patent agent 100% for a while.

Ultimately he came back to tech, but acts as a sort of front line patent agent for our company as well.

We have many discussions about the inanity of the whole system. I’m an idealist, he’s more of a realist about it. It exists. If nothing else, we participate from a defensive posture.

He has shared that he kind of likes the game of patents. You have an idea, which you then have to represent/express/model in a language that looks like English but isn’t exactly that has its own set of rules and idioms. Or in short, it can be seen a lot like the software we write. While he likes it as a sort of variety, he seems to like it about 20%, and when the workload goes above that much commitment, the complaining starts and the desire to get back to “the real work we do” begins to be expressed.

When I have asked him why he doesn’t do more of it, he has shared the same observation others have shared here: Agent is a great skill to have to broaden your value, attorney is what you want to do if you want to earn lots of money at it.

On that note, we both observe that the foundation of lawyering is to be in contention with someone, and generally speaking the less contention among people, the better. Someone’s gotta do it apparently, but it’s not a sphere of happiness.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#23

Post by southbalkan »

I went from electrical engineering (logic design and then aerospace) and went to law school (night school) specifically for patent law. I now have 14 years as a patent attorney writing patents. It is definitely a change of pace from designing circuits to a largely technical writing career.

However, (with a small "boutique" firm) the hours are more flexible, the work is rewarding due to always learning new technology at the bleeding edge, and you get to interact with engineers/developers in the industry. Having a strong engineering/science background helps you in getting up to speed on new technology quickly, and having a strong writing background is a required skillset (but that can be developed over time). As with many careers, having good mentor(s) does make a difference. The "lawyer" part is definitely present, but more in the background for drafting/obtaining patents (referred to as "prosecution") vs. litigation work. For prosecution, "the law" is more about learning a set of "operating rules" and applying those rules to your daily work to both comply with the requirements and to anticipate litigation issues in the future. Patent work can also encompass licensing, employment agreements, trademarks, portfolio strategy, competitor analysis - all of which vary from firm to firm on how deeply that sort of work crops up. For litigation, you are definitely more involved in traditional attorney work, sometimes courtroom work/sometimes behind the scenes.

To become a patent agent, passing the Patent Bar Exam is required, and takes a bit of studying - it is not trivial and largely learning a set of rules/procedures to practice in the field. Of course, adding the "attorney" title requires yet another more comprehensive Bar Exam (state-by-state) and most states also require attending a law school prior.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#25

Post by antoniuschan99 »

hkhanna wrote: post #16

I went from being a biomedical engineer -> M&A lawyer -> software engineer with a side legal practice. I learned that law school was intellectually rewarding and the practice of law can be fun, but I could not stop thinking about software that I wanted to build to improve the practice of law. I took that as a sign that I needed to spend some of my working life being a software engineer. I think what I have now is a g…

What was your route towards biomedical engineer? That’s the route that I find most interesting right now - especially as I’m getting older. Seeing lots of family in ill health and lots of new medical info we’re getting from then pandemic

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#26

Post by the_only_law »

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #25
hkhanna wrote: post #16

I went from being a biomedical engineer -> M&A lawyer -> software engineer with a side legal practice. I learned that law school was intellectually rewarding and the practice of law can be fun, but I could not stop thinking about software that I wanted to build to improve the practice of law. I took that as a sign that I needed to spend some of my working life being a software engineer. I think what I have now is a g…

What was your route towards biomedical engineer? That’s the route that I find most interesting right now - especially as I’m getting older. Seeing lots of family in ill health and lots of new medical info we’re getting from then pandemic

> What was your route towards biomedical engineer?

My guess is bachelors in an engineering field, particularly biomedical engineering.

Sadly I think they fall on the lower pay end for engineering fields.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#27

Post by tuckerpo »

the_only_law wrote: post #26
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your route towards biomedical engineer? That’s the route that I find most interesting right now - especially as I’m getting older. Seeing lots of family in ill health and lots of new medical info we’re getting from then pandemic

> What was your route towards biomedical engineer? My guess is bachelors in an engineering field, particularly biomedical engineering. Sadly I think they fall on the lower pay end for engineering fields.

Lower end of pay and almost zilch for job opportunities without a PhD, at least in the US.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#28

Post by Spooky23 »

openknot wrote: post #7
codingdave wrote: post #2

I started to - I went to law school with the intent of switching, and ultimately cut that short to go back to tech. I just didn't enjoy working with attorneys. I'm sure some people do, so my rejection of that industry should be taken with a grain of salt... but I'd take time to get to know who your professional community would be before committing to such a change.

I'm curious. What was your experience working with attorneys? I heard an anecdote from a law student that the classmates were highly competitive about grades. Less anecdotally, there was a recent Financial Times article about corporate lawyers at one firm billing ~100 hours each week, and others sleeping only ~5 hours a night. It also reported a more accurate measurement from a survey: "That level of exhaustion is ta…

It’s like anything else, people get into law and chase money without thinking about what they are getting into and why the pay is so high. Don’t feel sorry for them, a bunch of type-a types killing each other for sport is by it’s nature a stressful endeavor.

Even in public sector, the mental toll of dealing with criminal prosecution and defense is high. Alcoholism is rampant, all sorts of personal acting out / implosions are frequent. (High-flyer prosecutors and corp counsel people in local government are looking for money indirectly through political aspirations or access.)

It’s the price of admission to working your way into a more elite strata of society. It’s much harder than the old fashioned way.

People who find a less lucrative, but sustainable, niche are like any other professional.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#29

Post by hkhanna »

the_only_law wrote: post #26
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your route towards biomedical engineer? That’s the route that I find most interesting right now - especially as I’m getting older. Seeing lots of family in ill health and lots of new medical info we’re getting from then pandemic

> What was your route towards biomedical engineer? My guess is bachelors in an engineering field, particularly biomedical engineering. Sadly I think they fall on the lower pay end for engineering fields.

That's exactly right. Bachelors & Masters in biomedical engineering. The pay is not great, even with an advanced degree!

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#30

Post by syedkarim »

richardfontana wrote: post #9

FWIW: IAAL and I also have a CS educational background but never really worked as an engineer outside of academia. I spent a few years in the middle of my legal career working primarily on patent prosecution, which is the work also done by patent agents. I would personally not recommend patent prosecution to any lawyer or aspiring lawyer. Patent prosecutors hold a second class status within the legal profession, some…

From my observations, I think patent litigation is pretty high up on the legal totem pole. Patent lawyers who focus on actual litigation (through federal district courts, as opposed to the USPTO PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board) are responsible for cases that have legal fees at the $10M-level. But to support your point, a trial attorney who focuses on patent litigation is not necessarily a patent lawyer (though can be). There is a sort of arbitration at the PTAB for patent disputes, which does require a USPTO-registered attorney, but that's a process that is cheaper for all parties involved, so it's less money for the law firm. I assume those lawyers have less prestige at larger firms.

From my experience, patent lawyers who focus on patent prosecution bill at rate ~$300 - $500; patent litigators are $500 - $1000 (and I'm sure some litigators are much higher).

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