Many law firms that have not traditionally provided intellectual property services to their clients have responded to the recent growth and expansion of innovation and technology-based businesses by expanding or adding new practice areas focused on the creation, protection, marketing, acquisition, transfer and regulation and use of intellecutal property and resolution of disputes. Legal work involving intellectual property, particularly patents, requires a lawyer with a specific background and skill set. Patent lawyers must not only understand and practice patent law, but they must possess sophisticated technical expertise in disciplines such as biotechnology, chemistry, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering or computer hardware and software. Such attorneys are in short supply. Recent statistics indicate licensed patent attorneys represent only 1.5 percent of all licensed attorneys in the United States.
Patent law remains the single most active area of legal recruiting.
While intellectual property-related services have been available from boutique law firms for some time, much of the growth in recent years has been in general law firms. The depth and breadth of legal services offered by large multidisciplinary firms provides added value to clients through the availability of legal services related to both intellectual property and the corporate, financial and commercial issues associated with the development and commercialization of intellectual property. Choosing a patent attorney involves finding an individual with the relevant technical background and, ideally, a general familiarity with the industry to which a particular technology pertains. In addition to providing advice as to drafting a patent or trademark application, an effective patent attorney can help everyone from the individual inventor to corporate technology commercialization managers create patent fences to ensure new technologies receive the broadest legal protection possible. An initial meeting with a patent attorney often involves a detailed disclosure of an invention and may include a discussion of what the inventor or technology manager wishes to accomplish with the invention.