Originally posted by: Dirigible
Disclaimer: I'm not a patent agent.
Originally posted by: buzzsaw13
Had a patent attorney speak in one of my classes the other day, says a patent agent makes considerably less than an attorney. If you do plan on going to law school later, I hear you don't have to take the test to be a patent attorney if you work as a patent agent for 2 years.
You're probably thinking of patent examiner, not agent. You can not work as a patent agent at all without passing the patent bar first.
No, no, no. I used to be a patent examiner too, so I can attest to this.
Pre 2002, if you worked for more than 3 years as a patent examiner, the PTO would waive the exam requirement and issue you a registration number.
Now, to get a reg number by working for the PTO, you need two things: 1) certification of legal competency; and 2) negotiating authority. As to 1), the USPTO now requires examiners to take and pass a multiple choice test that is basically the examination portion of the patent bar (albeit it is a bit more dumbed down). As to 2), negotiating authority means that an examiner has to pass the "program" at the PTO, meaning that they have to be promoted from a junior examiner (GS 12 or lower) to a "primary" examiner (GS 13 or
higher). EDIT: I'm not sure about the 2+ years of experience as a primary. If that is a requirement, it is a relatively new one (last year or two).
So, an experienced examiner can in fact leave the patent office and work as a patent agent, provided they get their reg number from the PTO first.
As for the differences between a patent agent and attorney, there are several. Money is a big one. The patent agents in my firm get paid between 70-95K,depending on experience. Patent attorneys in my firm start at >160k.
The really big difference is what a patent agent can do vs. what a patent attorney can do. A patent agent can assist an inventor with just about any transaction before the USPTO, which generally means they can draft and prosecute patent applications. A patent attorney can do that as well, but they can also assist clients with non PTO related matters, e.g., litigation, opinions, general counseling, product development etc.
All in all, prosecution is a very important part of patent law (more important than many people recognize), but it can get boring. Becoming a patent attorney spices things up a bit by making the work more varied. Plus the 100% higher paycheck helps (though I question whether it is worth losing 4 years of my life for).