Patent Attorney Backgrounds

Professors Ralph Clifford, Tom Field, and Jon Cavicchi have published an interesting study on the technical backgrounds of patent attorneys and agents. After the trio submitted a FOIA request, the PTO handed-over 50,000 pages of patent bar registration applications.  Using that information, the trio created a database of registered patent attorneys and their associated degrees/schools. 

The paper makes the legitimate argument that the PTO should allow folks with a computer science degree to register — especially with the rise in the number of inventions related to computer science. “[A]n institutional bias exists within the PTO that prevents software-savvy individuals from registering with the Office.” 

The following table is excerpted from the article and shows the top-ten institutions where patent attorneys/agents received non-law degrees.

 

Rank Non-Law Degree University Count
1 Univ. Illinois  929
2 Massachusetts Inst. Tech. 908
3 Univ. Michigan 743
4 Cornell Univ. 631
5 Univ. California Berkeley 623
6 Purdue Univ. 602
7 Univ. Texas 582
8 Univ. Wisconsin 545
9 Univ. Maryland 520
10 Univ. Washington 503

Notes:

 

88 thoughts on “Patent Attorney Backgrounds

  1. 85

    The CS problem reminds me of a situation back at the PTO in the mid-80’s when I was a biotech examiner. A mol. biol. professor wanted to change careers and contacted our SPE, who really wanted to hire him. The OED (the PTO didn’t do direct hires then) decided he wasn’t qualified because he didn’t have a degree in molecular biology. He submitted a number of publications where he was the co-author in an attempt to show expertise. The OED felt that since he was a mere co-author, it didn’t show he had any understanding of their content. The upshot was the professor never became a patent examiner.

  2. 83

    IANAE, IIT and Cal Tech, both smaller than MIT, also have a significant portion of their graduates from lands other than the US (think, India and China). If they choose to stay in the US, they may be foreclosed from US patent jobs, or never think to pursue that avenue for obvious reasons.

  3. 82

    The absence of “some” large engineering schools from the list is notable.

    Considering how long the tail is on the distribution, and how comparatively small some of those “large engineering schools” are, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them show up in the next 50 with a still-significant number of registered patent practitioners, and I’d expect them to crack the top 50 if weighted by total number of living alumni or similar.

  4. 81

    Rapid, your conclusion is not complete. The absence of “some” large engineering schools from the list is notable.

  5. 80

    All we’ve learned from this is that large engineering programs produce lots of patent attorneys. Nothing really surprising.

    More interesting would be a stack-up of law schools by both total numbers, and percentage of alumni, registered as patent attorneys.

  6. 79

    I find it interesting that both Cal Tech and IIT are not in the top 30. This indicates that most of its graduates do not go into law, but stay in technology.

    This may have something to do with the kind of technology these schools specialize in as well. Regardless, their graduates at all levels may be able to easily find lucrative employment without changing career paths.

  7. 78

    A very senior patent attorney told me that there are three things that make a patent prosecutor superior: 1) A liberal arts background so he/she knows how to write well; and 2) some technical, academic background sufficient that he/she knows the technical vocabulary; and 3) some years of hands-on experience in the art so he/she knows how things *really* work – and don’t work. Note that the PTO qualifications are not congruent with what the Sr Atty told me. Does anyone have a better list?

  8. 77

    For the most part, schools with massive student bodies also have a high number of patent attorneys. In other news, water is wet.

  9. 76

    When I went to MIT, I had a year of chem *and* a year of physics as a freshman.

    Freshman year was 100% pass-fail.

    PTO doesn’t accept pass-fail courses in support of eligibility.

    Guess who took chem 101 and 102 when in law school? Funny, it was a lot easier than the MIT version….

  10. 75

    Not many of us from Loughborough University, then? I jest, I wouldn’t expect there to be many from any university in England.

    I’m a BSc in EE, or really EEE, to be more exact. I just had to sign a written statement that it was equivalent to an American EE degree with specialisation in electronics (the other E) and supply a transcript. We don’t have transcripts over there, only the US and Canada do, so the university had to compile one from the records of my grades. Another ‘alien’ I know got the SAE to make a similar statement for him (he has a mechanical engineering degree). I think it’s actually harder to get to take the test if you did your degree in the US, LOL!

    I don’t know why a CSci grad should have to have studied physics and/or chemistry. Seems pointless.

    I did nuclear physics in my EE degree, but not chemistry, which seems to surprise Americans for some reason. OTOH, I did study semiconductors, and also materials science, so maybe those courses count as chemistry? Of course, I did study chemistry in high school.

  11. 74

    I’m pleased to see that those having BA degrees (even if in science) like I’ve got rank third in terms of degrees obtained. I came from Carleton College where you could only get a BA degree as it is strictly a liberal arts college. There is also quite a few of us Carleton grads who went on to become patent attorneys, including a fellow classmate of mine (Scott Daniels) and my younger brother Mark. I’ve always felt that having a liberal arts degree and being required to take courses outside my chemistry major was a huge postive for being a patent attorney.

  12. 73

    Even though I had a degree in chemistry so there was no issue in sitting for the patent agent’s exam, I’m very sympathetic to those with computer science and similar degrees who are run through this nonsensical “gauntlet” to demostrate technical competency for the exam. Many years ago, I had a law school classmate who had a degree in mathematics but had trained in a corporate patent department to gain competency in actual patent prosecution. She had to run this nonsensical “gauntlet” (with able assistance from her corporate mentors) and was allowed after much movin of “heaven and earth” to (reluctantly) sit for the exam. If the exam applicant can demostrate relevant technical (or patent prosecution training) competency, with or without a college/university transcript, that should be enough to sit for the exam.

  13. 72

    I wish the discussions here didn’t become a pissing match as often as they seem too. Anyone know a fast way to (automatically) filter those out so I can read just the commentary/discussion related to the topic?

  14. 70

    Maybe someone can answer this question – I took a quick look at the paper and could not find an answer. Was the tabulating or statistics on the university frequency count adjusted or analyzed for people who have more than one non-law degree? I have degrees from two of the universities on the top 20 list, and I know at least three other patent attorneys who do as well.

  15. 69

    I don’t understand what the studied data has to do with the conclusion.

    If computer scientists should be eligible, they should be eligible for some logical reason.

    What difference does it make to that argument how many attorneys graduated with electrical engineering degrees from Purdue?

    As I recall the patent bar application requires a lot of very personal information. I for one resent that it was handed over to these guys.

  16. 67

    I did my best to notice
    when the call came down the line
    up to the platform of surrender
    I was brought but I was kind
    and sometimes I get nervous
    when I see an open door

    sarah, we know the answer, do we not.
    stay safe.

  17. 66

    wistfully – me (wow that is obviously an incorrect characterization.

    without any grace – you grading grace? – now that’s like 6 teaching reading comprehension.

    Me disappointed? – your disappointment is gravely misplaced. You have mistaken me for someone who cares Maxie.

    Or is that my agenda aimed at? Or is that my motive?

  18. 65

    ping writes wistfully of me (and without any grace) “you don’t seem to learn anything here”.

    Sorry to disappoint you ping but I do, ping, I do.

    You are intelligent enough. So, write something useful for a change can’t you (rather than, for example, jumping to call somebody out for using ordinary colloquial German). Your endless sniping (More “formalism” than I’m accustomed to?) is now getting ridiculous.

  19. 64

    Thanks James – plus my formalism is probably more than Maxie is accustomed to.

    Maxie,

    since when was “learning from” and “influencing” mutually exclusive? In a lively and civilised dialogue, do not both participants learn something?

    That might be the usual case, however, since you don’t seem to learn anything here and keep posting the same stuff over and over (and over and over), I kinda have to narrow your agenda to one of merely “influencing”. I noticed that you failed to entertain the general readership here with insights to: “Now what would be the motive behind my agenda? Hmmm. Better yet, what is my agenda aimed at?

    me quoting me.

  20. 63

    James my point concerned the former discrimination against the CS degree for PTO registration, not the presentation of transcripts as an alternative route to registration. In the 90s the C- degree alone was inadequate and the registration applicant had to present transcripts to prove they hadn’t received a BA or BBA in disguise.

    I think programmers tend to be hostile to patents because they tend to lack broader education and they perceive their ox being gored. Go look at slashdot or any other site flaming patents and you’ll see laughable ignorance. Notwithstanding the fact that pretty much all 5,xxx,xxx software patents were pitifully examined with a pitiful collection of prior art and probably are dubiously valid.

  21. 61

    ping – Versteh is a contraction. It is also the Yiddish variant. Just as in English, German has its versions of skweet.

  22. 60

    Well Ping I went to my husbands computer to copy some emails I received from DSD. Guess what first the system told me it crashed. I rebooted. Then when I copied the emails from DSD, the page was empty, Wow magic. So I tried that again double magic!
    This is a job for Dino the wonder dog.
    Metis

  23. 59

    Here is the my question, you have all these technical brainwaves floating around USPTO who supposedly have high quality technical degrees but the One Click Patent was originally undone by a remote control because the examiner’s search was filled with technical mumbo jumbo about WANs, LANs, electronic commerce, and any combination of other technical jargon rather than the examiner saying to himself (it was a he), gee what else can I order where my info is stored ahead of time by pushing a button. So why is we are supposed to wonder why the examiners ignore what the applicants send in?

    Probably the examiner went home the night he created the long complicated search document for 5,960,411, and said, hey I want to kick back and watch a little WWE, let me order it on Pay Per View with my remote control. One click and I’m in business.

    Its time for something new and education snobbery just isn’t going to cut it.

  24. 58

    “Yup. I’ll ask the question again: why does the PTO continue to insist on a technical background for being a patent examiner when a large part of the backlog is crrp that has no basis in any kind of “science” whatsoever? Advertising? Methods of letting you know it’s almost time to buy some more toilet paper online? Methods of letting your fake friends know that your fake pet died?”

    Because we like to pretend that we’re involved in the Useful Arts even if the courts decline to let us be?

  25. 57

    A geeky high school student is overqualified for many of the crappy software patents out there. And for the business method patents (those that still exist at least) …

    Posted by: Tony | Aug 21, 2010 at 10:22 PM

    Yup. I’ll ask the question again: why does the PTO continue to insist on a technical background for being a patent examiner when a large part of the backlog is crrp that has no basis in any kind of “science” whatsoever? Advertising? Methods of letting you know it’s almost time to buy some more toilet paper online? Methods of letting your fake friends know that your fake pet died?

    Is Kappos trying to perpetuate the collective delusion?

    Hire some Examiners with working brain cells. They don’t need technical degrees. They just need to know how to operate a personal computer and think logically and write clearly. There are a lot of such people out there. They can be hired cheaply, particularly now.

  26. 56

    “It concerns what seems to be an institutional bias against CSci majors in spite of software patents being number two in terms of applications.”

    Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of those as well soon enough.

  27. 55

    Coleman, as you wish.

    ping, since when was “learning from” and “influencing” mutually exclusive? In a lively and civilised dialogue, do not both participants learn something? Oops?

    Or is it that you think that this is not the proper place for such a dialogue?

  28. 54

    tony – Chem and Physics are no big deal. Good exercise for the brain. The better colleges require undergrad CSci majors take one or the other or both. The requirements were clearly spelled out by OED. Even Organic was a fun course for me. Was the only one of 180 to solve a tricky lab problem. Big ego trip. LOL. ****** The thrust of the paper is not about Chem and Physics requirements. It concerns what seems to be an institutional bias against CSci majors in spite of software patents being number two in terms of applications.

  29. 53

    James,

    Isn’t the correct question: Verstehen Sie?

    And Maxie – nice try, but your slip wasn’t that you wanted to learn from thought leaders,it was that you wanted to influence thought leaders.

    Oops.

  30. 52

    Max3 – You were given my answer, that I am simply reporting what some people have proposed. That is all you will get from me. It is like reporting sports scores or the weather. I told you I take no position on the matter. I have no “dog in the fight”. I simply do not care. Versteh?

  31. 51

    ping, if I want to learn, at whose feet should I sit. Thought leaders perhaps?

    But sitting at their feet isn’t enough. First I have to provoke them into speaking.

    I post incessantly, and I often get illuminating feedback. Sometimes even from you.

    All this helps me to understand where my US clients are coming from. Isn’t that reason enough?

  32. 50

    …on and by the way, ya dropped a hint the other day – ya be aiming at thought leaders – isn’t your standard line about how you “just want to learn?”

    Your bs is showing.

  33. 49

    dear sarah,

    Maxie is clueless, although funny in an unintentional kind of way.

    Hey Maxie – ya think that maybe I throw that Gold Standard line out there because otherwise your white noise droning on and on (and on and on) is all of a sudden not boring?

    It be funny how ya think I have an agenda when you are all about wanting to change the US system to something less powerful and how great the EP system is (cepts it just aint as desired as the US patent). Now what would be the motive behind my agenda? Hmmm. Better yet, what is my agenda aimed at? Your insight should make for some comical reading.

    On the other hand, the aim of your posts are very clear. I think the more interestin point is focusin on the “why” of your agenda. So why is it that you post incessantly on a US blog site about US patents?

  34. 48

    The Lady doth protest too much. You must be speaking to me Limey. Fifteen years? Apparently that was not enough. Especially when I knew absolutely nothing about my own Case! Can you just imagine how wonderful that will be to a Jury.
    I also think the written note in a File,in regards to what one said the other said, and the content. Speaks of a Team then. So you have at it Maxie. We shall see.
    And remember Maxie there are some people that I have given things to. And I am sure they will be there when the time comes.
    Metis

  35. 47

    TMWW, thanks. Good point. I agree that claim construction is key to the outcome of most patent disputes, and I know this is often done by the judge, as a preliminary issue, the Markman way. I suppose that merely following this blog is a relatively poor way to grasp the reality of the sheer bulk of patent litigations initiated in the USA, day by day.

    So, can you tell me, if we were to look at the stream of nicely balanced patent cases, how many of them (would you say) settle, as a consequence of a Markman procedure (and how many continue, because one or the other party does not accept the judge’s claim construction)?

    And a supplementary question: How often does it happen that the construction the Markman judge puts on the claim is neither the one advanced by the Plaintiff, nor that of the Defendant?

    ping, every time you shout “gold standard” and “Max has an agenda” does it not occur to you that it might be counter-productive (as well as boring)? Do you remember Shakespeare’s “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”.

    Coleman, I don’t quite follow. I was thinking of litigation as a last resort, when everything else has been tried already. What drives people to litigate is the need for something ADR can’t deliver, like an injunction. The more there is at stake, the more wisdom you need from the decision-maker.

    Of course, you can spin it the other way too. Deliberately make patent litigation a spin of the coin, a total lottery, and mose sane businessmen will opt instead for ADR.

    But, I wonder, is there not a class of Litigant that has a vested interest in maintaining the lottery?

  36. 46

    What? Computer Science majors whining that they had to take physics and chemistry? It seems ridiculous that your school allows people to major with a B.S. in Comp. Sci. without that.

    I’m a computer science major who qualified since my school is ABET accredited. I had 8 hours of physics and 4 hours of chemistry in my first year of undergrad.

    That said, I’ll get off my high horse now. A geeky high school student is overqualified for many of the crappy software patents out there. And for the business method patents (those that still exist at least) …

  37. 45

    TMWW,

    What else are we gonna expect from Maxie? He loves to talk about the US system (as much as he can find faults) and loves to talk about the EP system (as much as he can overblow it).

    It be all like background white noise at this point.

  38. 44

    Hey guys I was in Palo Alto last year and had an Stanford MBA graduate serving me pizza at California Pizza Kitchen. I would really, really think twice about the tuition paid at Stanford.

  39. 42

    Ahh MaxDrei that is a very interesting that you advance a jury trial analysis to demonstrate the impropriety of technical judges. However, very, very little is done by juries in patent cases with respect to technical issues. Many of the cases never get past the Markman hearing and all issues at the Markman hearing are determined by judges and are typically dispositive. As a coup de grace, the issues surround the Markman hearing are often the most technically involved in the case.

  40. 41

    ames – The Knuth series (3 volumes)is one of the most famous early books about CSci. Hard to believe the PTO does not have dozens of copies. So it is very accessible. And yes, the IBM Tech Bulletins were a good source also.

  41. 39

    Max3 – If parties wish to have a case decided by those with superior technical knowledge, they can use ADR and design their own rules. That may be one reason why the notion of the Science Court never caught on. No real need for it because it already exists. Again, I do not intend to attempt to convince you of anything other than that the notion arises every ten or so years.

  42. 38

    Coleman, sorry I failed to make myself clear.

    Let’s start from what cannot be changed: facts will be what the jury decides.

    Given that immutable fact of life, what’s the point of having judges who do actually have some inkling of the science or engineering that underlies the dispute on infringement and validity? For any such judge, a high tech patent action would be a torture.

    Likewise, for litigators, whose mission is to engage with the jury. Any that do actually understand the science or the engineering are at a disadvantage, in that they will not be able to imagine what the jury members understand or do not understand. Who does actually use as trial lawyer an attorney with a science or engineering background?

    Which of these judges and trial lawyers wants to get rid of the jury? None of them. Which has a vested interest in continuing with the system as it is? All of them. In this way, litigators are in union about resisting any change to the system as it is now.

    But I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong. Can you convince me of that, I wonder.

  43. 37

    “The paper references a patent issued for a technology described in Donald Knuth’s books written in the Sixties. Guess those ants have spread. LOL.”

    JC: nice come back. I have no problem with published prior art – provided that examiners can access it. Those IBM technical disclosure bulletins were a godsend to me many times back in the examining corp.

  44. 36

    James Coleman:

    Well, I am not sure that was what I had in mind when I posed the question.

    So what I am curious about is that: although the inventions in computer and other technologies can be complicated, these complicated inventions in patents are claimed in terms of simplified layers of abstraction. For example, if inverters were not known until now and somebody invented an inverter that uses complex gate circuitry and noise margin determination, the claim in patent would simply describe an inverter at a level of abstraction in which there would be an element and that element would be able to invert signal fed to it.

    So, the agent or attorney needs to basically understand the invention at the level of abstraction like judges and like the patent litigators who may or may not have the technical pedigree to understand the invention in low level detail. Of course, I am not saying that this does not require some level of intelligence. I will admit that judges and litigators are very intelligent people.

    So what I was asking was that: is there a real harm in allowing other attorneys or to be agents who can pass the patent office’s admission test, but do not necessarily have the requisite technical pedigree, to prosecute patent application given that they can get clients.

  45. 35

    Not that Stanford grad students and others at PARC had nothing to do with (in whole or in part): GUI’s, VLSI’s, Ethernet, WYSIWYG text editing, laser printing, modern PC, a-Si, SmallTalk, InterLISP, Remote Procedure Calls,and other innovations. Note that Xerox let many of these innovations pass to public domain, something that the PTO cannot let happen too often.

  46. 34

    Interesting that Stanford didn’t make the list

    Stanford was number 14 on the larger list in the paper with 451 patent attorneys/agents. Given that it only has about 6,800 undergraduate students and isn’t as purely science-focused as MIT, it is probably still disproportionately represented.

    In general, the longer list (the top 50) is basically a list of the best private schools in the country as well as the best and largest public schools. Some notable absences from the US News & World Report top 25: Brown and Dartmouth (the only missing Ivies), the University of Chicago, Washington Univ. in St. Louis, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Vanderbilt. So it has 18 of the top 25 schools, at least according to US News’s admittedly flawed ranking.

    Don’t read too much into the list, though, since it only adds up to 5,809 registrations, or about 21.7% of the total. It would seem that there is a long tail with no one institution or small group of institutions dominating the list.

  47. 33

    Interesting that Stanfurd didn’t make the list… I guess the prominence of its engineering department is all hype.”

    Either that or they’re actually, you know, engineering stuff.

  48. 32

    ames – The paper references a patent issued for a technology described in Donald Knuth’s books written in the Sixties. Guess those ants have spread. LOL.

  49. 31

    Max – I took no position on the issue. Merely reported on it. Who is the “Union of Trial Lawyers”?

  50. 30

    Coleman: Do you not think that there is a contradiction between the concept of “justice by jury” and a “science court”? What does the Union of Trial Lawyers think about the idea of a judge with a science background? Is not the very idea of “technical judges” simply intolerable?

  51. 29

    Interesting that Stanfurd didn’t make the list… I guess the prominence of its engineering department is all hype.

  52. 28

    xyz – Every ten years or so, we hear about a need for a Science Court, a court made of judges with science degrees. This Court would, so the proposals go, be better able to adjudicate disputes like patents as well as some medical cases. There was a case involving Data General ( a computer company) around 1980. The plaintiff argued that something the mfr had done “locked in” the customer to DG’s technology. After the case went to the jury, the jury asked the judge if they could see the “lock”. IIRC, the judge had no idea it was not a physical device, either. But the argument for a Science Court dies because of practicalities and the fact that all judges believe themselves omnicompetent and, if they are not, it is the fault of the lawyers.

  53. 27

    If patent judges (district court and CAFC) and patent litigators presenting arguments to these judges are not required to have an undergraduate degree in a technical discipline, then why do agents and/or attorneys who prosecute patent application are burdened by such requirement?

    Patent agent and/or attorneys work for an inventor. Examiners don’t work for an inventor so I can understand that they need to have strong technical background to “independently” understand the invention.

    Just curious

  54. 25

    ames – I am not applying for any job at PTO. That was years ago. Already been told I am “not qualified”. Now about those qui tam actions . . .

  55. 24

    “At least once a month I see a patent issued for something I saw back in the Sixties.”
    The EE SPEs will be dropping your c.v. like a mound of fire ants after reading that one.

  56. 22

    I can’t wait till I can file a Patent again. I am ready to bust wide open. Imagine I will be a real person again. I didn’t even get a Census Form. But that was because I don’t count, YET!

  57. 21

    “would love to see similar statistics for examiners. Does (or did) the PTO similarly discriminate against potential examiners who have CS backgrounds?”

    No, ironically they don’t.

  58. 19

    Mark – While it may be the case that there is variation is what constitutes a CSci degree, colleges have come up with an amazing way of showing what courses a student has taken. It is called a “Transcript” and, when joined with a set of course descriptions, solves the problem. OED requires transcripts. FYI, CSci degrees *are* do qualify a person to sit for the PTO exam. In my case, it was a Masters taken on Plan C – which has very specific requirements – so the issue of inconsistency is specious. BTW, I looked at the U of Illinois requirements for EE and for CSci. EE undergrads are not required to take even one software course although they may elect to do so. Oddly, they may elect to take classes in Rhetoric rather than in programming C++. CSci majors at U of I must take from 71 to 76 hours of software courses. You are correct. The term is “discrimination”.

  59. 18

    Some CS degrees were basically liberal arts with 12-24 hours of “computer” classes or BBAs with 12 hours of ‘data processing.’

    That esplains a lot of the liberal leanings of the lemming programmers who spout “software patents are baaaaad” and esplains why their reasoning (feel free to insert “policy driven” arguments) typically can be applied to a “all patents are bad” philosophy.

  60. 17

    The reason for discrimination against CS majors is/was that there was no consistency among degree requirements across the nation. While the requirements for a BS_E are fairly standard nationwide. Some CS degrees were basically liberal arts with 12-24 hours of “computer” classes or BBAs with 12 hours of “data processing.”

    And yes the top ten public school are characterized by large enrollments and strong engineering programs. I suspect UI is at the top due to proximity to Chicago, it’s industrial origins, and plethora of law schools, which made it the most active patent region outside DC for most of the 20th century.

  61. 16

    The problem is with the bureaucratic mindset that requires everyone to fit into the right shape hole.

    That’s called count-widgititis. The accompanying disease of oh-we-can’t-change-that accounts for the non-professional attitudes and behavior of those who want to be considered professionals, as well as the pervasive quality issues we see in the Office.

    Allowance notgranted to nonsequitursRUs at the link to patentlyo.com thread for trying to award Non Sequitur of the Day to a concept – my awards are strictly for people making the bonehead statements – statements about bonehead conditions are a different ilk.

  62. 15

    One of the comments above assumes something that is not the case. As someone who made a living as a programmer and analyst in the early days of computers, it is not true that “a greater percentage of software was being written by EEs.” In the early days, when programmers had to know a whole lot more than a 4GL that does half the work for them, programmers came from diverse backgrounds. I worked with people with degrees in math, English, and even music. It was not until 1969 that any major university offered a degree in CSci. It was around 1993 that the PTO added CSci as a qualifying major. Even though I co-authored one of the most popular languages in the world, I headed back to U to accumulate the CSci credits to sit for the exam. I never had any problems with being allowed to sit for the exam. Where I did run into problems was in applying for a position as an Examiner. Despite some twenty-years hands-on computer experience and numerous published articles on the subject, because I did not follow Plan A (undergrad degree in Engineering), I was found “not qualified”. At least once a month I see a patent issued for something I saw back in the Sixties. The problem is with the bureaucratic mindset that requires everyone to fit into the right shape hole. Programmers who are any good tend to be oddballs. Proud to be one.

  63. 13

    Seems like the list could also serve as pretty decent list of the schools with the strongest engineering programs with only a few exceptions.

    As for “Some of the schools that they point to like University of Illinois have several different locations. This separation was noted for the University of California.”, the UC system is pretty unique in that unlike most other state school systems, they actually have multiple campuses with very strong academic reputations (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSF and UCI all comes to mind), while it’s pretty likely that the vast majority of the agents counted under Illinois came from the Urbana campus.

  64. 12

    I think a more interesting analysis is trying to determine how many Federal Judges that have heard a patent infringement case has one of the technical degrees required to practice patent law. It is with great interest that I await this analysis to determine if there is a correlation between the finding of inequitable conducti and the technical experience of the Federal Judge hearing the patent infringement case.
    Let’ face it, the analytical ability that comes with years of technical experience and education does not derive easily from a liberal arts education and working as a lawyer and/or a judge.

    It makes no sense to have Judges without backgrounds in high technology to hear patent cases. You can see the divergence in the opinions of the Federal Circuit Court that typically breaks down along technical education and experience.

  65. 11

    So MIT, Cornell, and Purdue are the only private schools that made the list?

    Purdue is a public school.

    Seems that, overall, patent attorneys are a fairly “state school” demographic.

    I don’t know about that. The list isn’t weighted for school population, and the state schools in the top 10 are all huge. The U of Illinois, for example, has over 31,000 undergrads at the Champaign-Urbana campus alone. Michigan-Ann Arbor has over 26,000. Purdue, which as mentioned is public, has over 31,000.

    Compare that to MIT’s ~4,200 and Cornell’s ~14,000.

    The numbers suggest that MIT and Cornell grads are actually disproportionately represented. It’s hard to say how much, exactly, since I suspect a higher percentage of MIT’s undergrads than, say, the UC Berkeley are in technical programs.

  66. 10

    So MIT, Cornell, and Purdue are the only private schools that made the list? Seems that, overall, patent attorneys are a fairly “state school” demographic. I’m not sure what generalizations can be drawn from that, but I do think the patent bar would be perceived much differently if it were instead comprised mostly Ivies, Stanford, CalTech, etc. grads…

  67. 8

    Man, after having read that decision it was as if the Court had been cribbing directly from my own posts. Indeed, many of the very same mannerisms are wholly intact.

    OMG is 6 actually a DC judge???!?!?!

  68. 6

    What ends up happening is that software patents are prosecuted by EEs, which probably made more sense when a greater percentage of software was being written by EEs.

  69. 5

    James, no, the PTO does not.

    I was prevented from getting my registration number for a year because of my CS degree (had to take 8 hours of physics classes before they’d let me sit for the test). In the interim, I took a job as a patent examiner with no such requirements.

    Guess they figure CS is good enough for government work, just not the private sector.

  70. 4

    Some of the schools that they point to like University of Illinois have several different locations. This separation was noted for the University of California.

  71. 3

    Why is a scientific or technical degree required to examine or prosecute a claim that is completely lacking in a scientific or technical contribution (e.g., most business method claims and a significant portion of computer-implemented crrp)?

    e.g., what was the technical background of the Examiner who granted the claim on a method of exercising a cat with a laser pointer? or the novel prayer rug?

  72. 2

    My degree wasn’t in an “accepted” field either, and rather go through the onerous route discussed above, I went category C and took the FE. Of course, call me biased, but I feel that I actually demonstrated my technical competence, unlike someone who barely squeaks through their undergrad degree but still qualifies under category A.

  73. 1

    As someone registered to practice before the PTO and who has a computer science background, I can attest to what the author’s say. In fact, the requirements for proving eligibility by showing 32 hours in CS and 4 hours of chemistry or physics are even more onerous than they describe.

    A mere transcript showing the requisite credits is insufficient. No, you must also produce photocopies of the course catalog description of each course and a photocopy of the cover page of the course catalog. Good luck if your school doesn’t have old course catalogs available from that far back or if you no longer live in the area.

    I would love to see similar statistics for examiners. Does (or did) the PTO similarly discriminate against potential examiners who have CS backgrounds?

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