Biglaw, Sponsored Content

The Art (And Science) Of Patent Prosecution: MoFo’s Two-Summer Patent Program Isn’t About Recruiting; It’s About Training Law Students To Hit The Ground Running

Students in the Two-Summer Patent Program begin prosecuting patents on their very first day on the job. Learn more about it here.

By Deborah Huso  
on

Ed. note: This is a sponsored post.

Morrison & Foerster’s Two-Summer Patent Program offers a unique opportunity for aspiring patent attorneys to combine the security of a job offer with an unparalleled depth of training. Students in the Two-Summer Patent Program begin prosecuting patents on their very first day on the job.

Firm senior associate Randy Omid was one of the first students—as a 1L back in 2009—to go through the summer program, as well as the affiliated one-day Patent Boot Camp. “I had interviewed at several big law firms for both general summer positions and patent positions,” he says. “Patent Boot Camp and the Two-Summer Program allowed me to hit the ground running when I joined as a first-year associate. I was already very familiar with the attorneys and staff in the group, and I knew exactly who to reach out to for answers to my questions.” He adds, “It was a kick-start to building my network of IP colleagues.”

Partner Michael Ward, head of Morrison & Foerster’s Patent Group, and Patent Group Hiring Partner Peter Yim began
talking about developing a two-summer program as early as 2000. “We had a tremendous desire to have a steady stream of law students interested in being patent prosecutors with a technical background in science or engineering,” Ward explains.

The Two-Summer Program is also unique in that it begins for students in the summer after their first year in law school. “You’re not here to solicit a job,” Yim says. “You’re here to learn how to do the job.” Yim notes with a firm as sophisticated as Morrison & Foerster, which prides itself on superior client service and deep IP knowledge, training before landing a desk in the office is critical.

The program also gives students a greater sense of relevance in the classroom once they return to school in the fall.

“Law school, including Berkeley, which offers a wide array of patent classes, does not quite prepare a student for patent prosecution work,” says Eneda Hoxha, currently in her third year of law school. “Participating in a two-summer program allowed me to be exposed to many different types of projects and learn many aspects of patent prosecution that I would not have been able to learn  in school.”

Sponsored

“You go back to school with a sense of learning real-world skills,” Yim says. “You’re no longer there just to get a grade; you will study patent law with a lot more awareness of its relevance. We’re priming the pump.”

According to Patent Attorney Recruiting Manager Lee Anne Masetti-Martin, 1Ls recruited into the summer program will complete two full summers with the expectation they will join Morrison & Foerster upon completion of law school.

“There is no splitting with other firms their second summer,” she notes. “The first summer serves as an introduction to patent prosecution, as most people have little or no training in prosecution, and law schools don’t teach the prosecution practice.”

Meanwhile, during the second summer, Morrison & Foerster can target training to individuals after having experienced the students’ strengths and weaknesses the previous year. “We look at our Two-Summer Patent Program as a true training program for our incoming associates—those who know they want to do prosecution and who want to start their careers while they are still in law school,” Masetti-Martin adds.

A critical part of the summer program is the one-day Patent Boot Camp where all the students come to San Francisco to participate in an intensive training on patent prosecution for 1Ls and litigation support for patent prosecutors for 2Ls.

Sponsored

“You get to see the whole picture and the whole process of it in a single day,” says Ward. After eight hours in session with Yim, who leads the camp for 1Ls, students understand statutes, how to meet with inventors, and draft responses to the USPTO.

During the second-year boot camp, 2Ls “build on the skill sets they’ve developed,” explains Ward. “In addition to prosecution, 2L participants learn how to provide technical support of cases for trial lawyers, how to conduct due diligence and how to determine if an investor in a technology or firm is ‘buying a lawsuit.’”

“The main objective of Patent Boot Camp is the culture and integration part,” says Yim. “Here is what it’s like to work with MoFo. Here are the resources, and here’s how to think about this stuff.”

Now a senior associate, Euborn Chiu says the Boot Camp consolidated all the parts of the lifecycle of a patent from filing to issuance and “presented the information chronologically so it could be understood by someone like myself who did not have patent prosecution experience.”

Yim says the most critical part of the Two-Summer Patent Program is helping participants create a professional network. “I want people to see each other as supporters, not competitors,” he explains. “You’re not competing for an offer; you’re learning to be colleagues.”

Anna Yunan Yuan, now a first-year associate, says the biggest thing she took away from the summer program was that “patent prosecution is an art—you need both technical knowledge and advocacy skills to excel.”

 

                                                                                                                                         

This post is sponsored by Morrison & Foerster.

Topics

, , , , ,