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Small Law Firm Open Thread: Intellectual Property

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Back to our series of open threads covering small (or smaller) law firms, focused on different practice areas. We’ve already written about small law firms in general, insurance law, personal injury law, trusts and estates, immigration, and real estate. Some of those discussions are still active, so feel free to look back at them.

Today we turn our attention to what’s widely viewed as a hot field: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. The reader who requested IP law as a subject offered an overview of the field:

IP is a very variable, different, and often forgotten practice of law that is mostly inhabited by engineers and science geeks who have no problems wearing Cosby sweaters and bad shoes around their workplaces.

More serious reflections, plus some questions, after the jump.

The correspondent interested in IP law, after offering her fashion observations, continued:

Patent law is supposed to be recession proof, but with the recent [troubles at certain large IP firms], I was curious to see how the small shops are doing. I hear of and am aware of small patent shops that do mostly prosecution work and wonder how they’re holding up. Any litigation?

What about the small specialty shops (be it entertainment law, software, videogames, etc) that deal with licensing? Is soft IP in a small place doing interesting work actually lucrative? Can you live off it? What about those in research institutions of universities handling licensing and college copyright, trademark, etc.?

I would love to know what IP law at a small place is like.

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We suspect this reader isn’t alone. We provide quite a bit of coverage in these pages of the big IP firms, as well as IP work done by certain departments at general practice firms (e.g., IP litigation at Weil Gotshal or Quinn Emanuel). But what is it like to do IP work at small(er) places?

If you can shed light on what it’s like to work at an intellectual property boutique, or if you’d like to pose some questions of your own about this area, please have at it in the comments. Providing (anonymous) data points about compensation and hours worked is especially welcome. Thanks!

Earlier: Prior small law firm open threads

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