It is thus recognized that a patent agent who offers full services with the Patent Office, who has a full scale practice comprehensive of prosecution, particularly, but even of the preparation of applications beyond searching, is relatively rare. Not many people have both a B.A. and a B.S. either. The B.A. concerned with this office fulfilled a pre-law curriculum. Patent Law is a subject which is almost wholly separate and distinct from all other law. The two meet in contracts.
Licenses are contracts and a patent, as mentioned earlier, is also essentially a contract.
Patent Law has its own rules governed by a single statute, Title 35 of the United States Code, and a particular set of regulations, Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which also encompasses Trademarks. The vast majority of what is taught in law schools has no direct bearing upon patent law which exists a strange and peculiar entity wholly unfamiliar to the vast majority of lawyers. One must possess a degree in the sciences to sit for the patent bar and one must possess knowledge of patent law and the logic of a lawyer to pass it. With regard to competent preparation and prosecution it is considered that there is no substitute for either analytical ability or experience. There have been a number of fairly fundamental changes in patent practice relatively recently, beginning with the creation of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit fifteen years ago and continuing with the signing of the Uruguay round of the GATT which took effect 8 June 1995.