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Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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!
haha yea but I have a feeling it will change in the future as the boomers age. I've looked at Bioinformatics and Genomics. Looks like a way easier route for software devs to get into the field and the pay I constantly read is that it's so low!
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#33FWIW: 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 ca…
This is accurate. Patent litigation is at the top and pulls the most fees by far.
Of course, it can also be very challenging. Setting aside troll/NPE cases, you're sometimes competing against the best attorneys at the best firms in the country, in cases where the amounts of revenue at stake vastly exceed any amount that the attorneys could reasonably bill (even at the typical rates of $500-$1500/hr).
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I see that a lot, and as a former biomedical engineer I would like to reframe this a bit.
Regardless of field of study in college, be it engineering, humanities, science, etc, you learn valuable skills that are almost certainly applicable to beyond your field of study. I for one saw many of my peers enter software engineering roles, project manager roles, or even consulting roles that all pay well, likely 80-100k+ right out of college. Speaking to my siblings who graduated a year ago, they appear to concur, and many are being paid more. Could this be a factor of where you go to college? Perhaps, but I'd argue it's also a bit about selling yourself to wherever you are trying to go.
Additionally, there are many folks that obtain further specialization in a different area of study via a graduate degree, such as a PhD like you mentioned, but also Master's level degrees. They can do biomedical engineering in undergrad, pursue other engineering master's, and succeed in their desired career. I found many peers that pursued this route especially for computer science.
To further push against the thought that biomedical engineers are without opportunity: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics states the mean annual wage of biomedical engineers is around $98,000, and the growth projections are around 6% over the next ten years, while lower than the average of 8%, is not "bad".
Would certainly like to see any other anecdotes from other biomedical engineers to refute or support my statements above; I'm no longer an engineer and thus my insight is likely limited compared to currently employed engineers.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#35For the lawyer side:
My dad did a transition from Mech E to patent lawyer, but super early in his career. Basically to the point where he didn't work much professionally as a mechanical engineer. My understanding is it's very different, but he really likes patent law. It requires a much greater interest in digging through legal history, and an even greater emphasis on writing than engineering does.
From my perspective (working as an engineer, growing up hearing everything about patent law):
If you like the building stuff part, stick with engineering.
If you like the debugging / analysis / almost-audit-like side of tech, and aren't scared by a giant reel of red tape (and as mentioned before like history digging and writing), then maybe patent law would be for you.
If you get good enough, you may be able to affect changes in the red tape even.
I can't really say much about the patent agent side.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#36As far as made-up "bullshit jobs" go in this society, patent lawyers are likely well-positioned on the compensation scale, but if you enjoy actually building something and having some fruit of your labor to show at the end of the day, it might not be a good place for an engineer. You'll be "solving" a problem that is the result of a completely artificial and particularly badly designed system. Such jobs can get to yo…
I don't think I could personally make it as a lawyer in any capacity; from those I have talked to in the legal profession it seems like 100% pushing papers around. Also, I don't agree with patents in a political sense.
It's not mindless "pushing papers around" -- that job is done by paralegals and administrative assistants.
But 50-100% of most attorneys' time is spent either "reading things," "researching things," or "writing things," if that is what you mean. That is the bread and butter of legal work these days, whether it's writing briefs, e-mails, letters or something else, and reading legal opinions, research materials, discovery, etc.
Basically most of your job as a patent litigator is to read things and occasionally depose people, then research things, then write things (not always in that order). The remainder of time is mostly spent on client communications and marketing.
Occasionally you may make it to trial or a mock trial, where you spend a lot more time on your feet and speaking (or sitting and listening while someone else speaks), but still generally around 25-50%+ of your trial time is spent reading and writing.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#37Worked as patent agent. Back in tech AMA. + extremely independent + lots of reading about different subjects + less time working on tooling or “chores” + admin to manage your calendar - much higher productivity expectations than tech - high intensity - varied knowledge of attorneys
How useful, and how common, would a PhD in life sciences (biology/biochemistry/genetics/etc.) to become a patent agent? I anecdotally heard and read of a few people who struggled to find industry work with that degree, and were then recommended to try and become patent agents/attorneys as the PhD should allegedly give them an advantage in work applications.
Know someone with PhD in chemistry that went into to law, then onto patent law. It seemed a long road. Then it took awhile to become accepted. However, here we are 15-20 years later, and they work as much as want to work. Interesting, is that they are registered (holds bar?) In a few States and countries.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#38Word of caution. UC Davis computer science graduates could not do patent law when I wanted to. Why? Because the dean Norman S. Matloff didn't fill out the paper work. So - "computer science" wasn't considered an engineering field at the time. It gets worse, I was the only one to make the request EVER. Make sure you research if your computer science department would be considered a valid engineering bachelors under th…
Yes. If you want to practice patent prosecution you need to pass the patent bar, and the patent bar is only available to a narrow and kind of weird set of engineering degrees.
Only some computer science degrees count, and only some degrees with "engineering" in the title count. The patent office is usually very strict with this and is not interested in hearing about why your degree should count.
They do offer alternative methods of qualifying based on the specific numbers of credits you have in certain classes, but that too is fairly strict.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#39I agree with the others who say that being a patent agent is kind of a dead end job unless you want to go be an attorney.
Even patent attorneys who do prosecution, however, are in for kind of a grind. Again as others mentioned, it's often either fixed-fee or low-billable-rate work, and the client often won't know the difference between a really great patent and a mediocre one.
To me the real fun is in patent litigation, where you sue or defend lawsuits in federal court. That is where the rubber hits the road and patents are really tested. To get a job there, you mainly need a law degree from a good or great school and excellent grades, although a tech background (or a background as a patent agent) can help.
Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?
#40Interestingly I know a lot of people who have done the opposite – corporate law/IP law/patent law to software engineering.