What are the Pros and Cons of Patent Prosecution
[00:00:00] Can you talk about patent prosecution or general IP practices in overseas markets?
Sure. So the first thing about patent prosecution, that's interesting and it's good and bad. The good news is that tons of companies all over Asia and Europe, are trying to do things that they're patenting in the US, and they do not want to export to the US until they patent them.
So those country companies are all over Asia, they're all over Europe. And if you have experience from the trends in patent then you theoretically could get a position with those firms as a patent attorney or as a patent agent. For those of you that aren't unaware, patent agents are admitted to the patent bar and can practice patent law. Patent attorneys can also be a member of the patent bar, but they're also been with the regular bar. So law firms do hire them both internationally and all over the US.
Patent prosecution and also trademark can be marketable in different firms.
Now, one thing that's nice about patent prosecution in Europe and [00:01:00] also in other countries in Asia is that you can work in a lot smaller firms, many times than the big ones. So if someone's a corporate attorney, they're only really looking at the larger firms.
If I have a patent attorney, for example, in Japan, I may be able to submit them to hundred-plus firms. Whereas a corporate attorney in Japan, in Tokyo, it's going to be a lower number. Meaning, there are a lot of opportunities and a lot of places where can work.
So that's the good news. Now, the bad news is that patent work is scientific and a lot of different types of people can understand it. Most countries pay people to do patent work a lot less than the United States. What tends to happen is there are a lot of people in China and all over Asia and India and so forth that are trained to do patent law and can write patents much more cheaply than American attorneys or patent agents.
It's very common now for patents, even for large us law firms, to have a lot of their patent work done in India and so forth, at a cost, [00:02:00] far lower than a US attorney would charge. And so they can get the work done more cheaply. As companies are trying to become more competitive what they will tend to do is, law firms are trying to become more competitive.
They will find people to do that work much less inexpensively. And so that's what happens. That's one of the things I think is a little bit scary about patent law. Is it that particular thing that happens?
