What is a Typical Day Like for a Patent Practitioner?

As a patent agent or attorney, you’ll likely have a variety of tasks each day. The start of a patent application will usually be to interview the inventors so you understand what they’ve invented. You will then need to review previous inventions in the field to get a feel for what’s already out there.

From there, you will draft the patent application. The application includes the background and summary of the invention, a description of the drawings, and the claims.  As you can see, there’s a fair amount of writing involved with working as a patent practitioner.

Once the application is written and sent out to the USPTO,  you’ll likely receive correspondence from an examiner at the USPTO stating why the application was rejected (this won’t always happen, but it often does).  You’ll need to counter the rejection by doing more research in the field and explaining why the invention is unique and patentable.

As a patent agent or patent attorney, you might receive an Office Action with a rejection from the USPTO. That means you crafted a patent application and an examiner at the USPTO rejected it. Often they’ll reject an entire application or just a portion of the claims within the application based on existing patents or prior art.   Generally, you’ll need to argue that the invention in the patent application is different from the prior art the examiner may have cited in the rejection.

You may also need to get patent drawings created by an illustrator.  You’ll need to send out the details to the patent illustrator and make sure what you get back conveys the invention accurately.

As you can imagine, it’s exciting to get to learn about new inventions before anyone else.  And your workday will revolve around protecting those inventions.

Both patent agents and patent attorneys do the above-mentioned tasks. Patent attorneys may also deal with copyrights and trademarks, helping individuals and businesses protect additional intellectual property.

Since a patent attorney is admitted to the bar, they are licensed to practice law in a specific jurisdiction.  This means as a patent attorney, you may help in patent litigation matters.  You may also provide other legal services including drawing up contracts and licensing agreements.

Is There A Lot of Courtroom Work?

In order to be in a courtroom, you’ll need to become a patent attorney and even within that field, specializing in patent litigation.  Patent litigators spend a fair amount of time in court, but there’s also a lot of prep work and paperwork too.

Patent attorneys who are not primarily litigators and most all patent agents spend the majority of their workday writing and prosecuting patent applications before the USPTO.   You’ll be working with inventors, preparing applications, filing documents to the USPTO, and reviewing prior art. You may need to spend some time at the USPTO or on the phone with an examiner, but that’s not a typical courtroom setting.

Is Work as a Patent Practitioner Dependent on Geography?

In many cases it is.  Most small towns are not going to have an IP law firm or corporation that needs an Intellectual Property (IP) department. However, there are exceptions.  Some small towns do have universities with a fully staffed IP department. Other universities hire out their patent needs to a local IP firm.

Other small towns have corporations large enough to support an IP department or again, those that hire out their patent needs to a local firm.

Just make sure if you’re absolutely set on living in a particular small town employed as a patent agent or attorney that you do the research and uncover whether or not that town has opportunities.

Larger cities almost certainly can support this type of job,  but again, if you’re set on a specific location, it’s best to research it first.