Engineers as Patent Agents

Becoming a patent agent can open up a whole new world of professional opportunities. In order to become a patent agent, you have to pass the Patent Registration Exam (often informally called "The Patent Bar Exam"). Almost anyone with an engineering degree (or at least two years of coursework in the field) can sit for the Patent Registration Exam.

Through an affiliation between IEEE and PLI (Practising Law Institute), members of IEEE receive a discount of 10% off PLI's Patent Bar Review Course…the top preparation course for the Patent Registration Exam in the country...whether you take the course live or homestudy. A list of our upcoming live locations and our homestudy courses can be found at www.patentbarreview.com. In order to take advantage of this discount, be sure to put "IEEE" and your member number in the "How did you hear of our course" box at the bottom of the enrollment page. (Discounts cannot be applied retroactively.) The course is available at various locations across the United States every year, and is also available in a homestudy format (world-wide). The course is available only in English.

Requirements

Generally, anyone with an undergraduate degree in engineering or the hard sciences (chemistry, physics, biology, some computer sciences majors, and other related fields) or the equivalent, can take the Patent Bar Exam to become a Patent Agent. (See the General Requirements Bulletin for the specific details.)

As ideas and technology have become the driving force of the modern economy, patent agents play an increasingly valuable role in securing the patents that protect and propel innovation. They are, as a result, sought after by law firms and corporations.

Engineers often enter our course feeling that they are at a disadvantage relative to the lawyers and law students. In fact, they shouldn't feel that way. Our course has taken engineers, with no legal experience to success on the Exam, as regularly as law students and lawyers. See our Testimonials page for statements from past students to that fact. In fact, the average law student or lawyer has NO significant advantage over anyone else taking the Exam. The Exam is not about patent law per se. It is about procedural details. This is not the kind of thing covered by most law school classes. Some of your classmates may have some significant experience in patent prosecution. They will have some advantage. Their work toward passing the Exam may be less arduous. But they are the exception. The majority of our course takers start with very little background, and reach the stage of full preparedness for the Exam at about the same rate. Thousands have done it. You just have to plan on being one of them.

FE Exam

If you do not have a degree that qualifies under Category A, or the proper coursework to qualify under Category B (engineers note specifically Option 4), you can qualify under Category C by passing the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (FE Exam).

Engineers Make Great Lawyers

The conventional wisdom is that the ideal undergraduate major for pre-law is political science. Other majors that are cited as helpful are philosophy and plain old liberal arts. This may well have been true 50 years ago, but it just isn't true today. The best undergraduate background may well be one in technology or finance.

Technology has insidiously entwined itself into our modern lives, and technology becomes more complex every day. A few decades ago all a trial lawyer had to know to try a medical malpractice case was some jargon and a rough idea of how surgeons carved up some specific part of the body. Now it would be unthinkable to even take on such a case without understanding the variety of drugs, machines and procedures available.

Fifty years ago patents were considered the provinces of those odd patent attorneys. They were nice to have, but businesses didn't rise or fall based upon patents or the lack thereof. Today, patent law is the hottest legal specialty with the highest salaries, and the highest reported job satisfaction. Most mega-firms now have a strong patent capability, and are looking to expand. While some patent litigators don't have a formal engineering or science degree, most do, and the Patent Office won't even let you sit for the Exam that allows you to practice before it unless you have that technical background.

Moreover, both science and engineering as disciplines are good preparation for law school. Law school will be taken up in analyzing a set of facts, replete with red herrings, applying some rules and articulating a result. It's all about analysis and problem solving and that's what scientists and engineers are trained to do. And most would agree that you will learn to work harder and smarter as an engineering or science undergraduate, than in the liberal arts.

Engineers as Law Students
Most graduating engineers and scientists understand the need for a post-graduate degree to prepare for a career that will be truly satisfying and lucrative. Taking a Master's program in your major is the obvious choice, but too few consider the option of law school.

In fact, law school is a perfect complement to an undergraduate degree in science or engineering. There is nothing in the typical pre-law college program that provides skills or knowledge that you don’t also get. It is true that most science and engineering programs do not emphasize writing and communication skills as much as pre-law programs, but that is balanced by the fact that a technical discipline is often more rigorous and accustoms the student to long hours and difficult material. To the degree that you have problems adjusting to the less “black and white” world of law school, rest assured that most employers of patent attorneys understand that some adjustment is required. They will be very forgiving of a weak performance in your first year, as long as you demonstrate that you understand and acted to rectify your disconnect with the less clear-cut nature of legal analysis.

A technical degree and legal training are also the ticket to entry into the fastest growing and extremely lucrative field of patent law. Despite the cartoons depicting patent attorneys as nerds with pocket protectors and law degrees, patent attorneys are often the best and brightest and are more and more sought after by the most prestigious law firms and corporations where intellectual property is the most important part of the business.

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