Patent Law

Patent Attorney Backgrounds

By Dennis Crouch

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.

Notes:

• The article's data is of attorneys registered as of May 2006.
• Download the article here.

Full post as published by Patently Obvious on August 20, 2010 (boomark / email).