The Patent Bar, by the bye, until this year was considered more difficult than any state bar exam and perennially boasted a considerably lower pass rate than any state bar exam. This year the essays were dropped, including claim drafting, and it is now all multiple choice. Clients of this office for patent applications sign a document entitled 'Power of Attorney' which actually is an authorization of agent and is restricted to filing and prosecution of that particular application and which directs all correspondence emanating from the Patent Office relating to that application to be mailed to this office. This is necessary in order to discharge the responsibilities assumed as the agent of record as the Patent Office will not entertain duplicate correspondence. Full and true copies of all such correspondence are further provided by this office as a part of the responsibility assumed.
Patent attorneys outnumber patent agents in the U.S. by four to one.
One might be an attorney and also an agent but the capacities are wholly separate. In the United States patent agents are often people selected by a company to receive the training necessary to become registered and then handle that company's patent filings in order to save money in attorney's fees. Many agents also restrict their activities to searching and hence are patent searchers in practice. 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.