A post from student blogger Brittany

According to the ever so popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I classify as an introvert although my friends would probably tell you otherwise. The idea of introducing myself, public speaking, and large crowds has always made me feel uneasy and although a career as a patent agent aligns exceptionally well with my sentiments, GETTING THE JOB DOES NOT! I knew upon enrolling into the program I would have to network, ask questions, and partake in other aspects of “putting myself out there”.

At every Lunch and Learn last semester I introduced myself to the speaker and told him or her a little about myself and to be honest it wasn’t too bad. After a few times it became second nature, it was important for me to tell the speaker about me in a sense. Now that I’m “actively seeking employment” I’ve been able to reach out to some of those same speakers for advice ranging from ways to strengthen my resume to potential interview questions.

I can’t say enough to go beyond your comfort zone, I know you’ve probably grown accustomed to your labmates or undergrad buddies but you have to take the next step for your career development. The relationships I’ve established extend beyond the scope of “can you help me find a job”, but these connections are with people I know I could contact even after I get my dream job (speak it into existence) to encourage me and act as mentors. One thing I’ve learned is becoming a great patent agent doesn’t happen overnight and having skilled people in one’s corner drastically increases the chances of him or her having a long and successful career.

Learning from the mistakes and triumphs of other patent agents/attorneys is invaluable. In addition to all the extremely beneficial courses in the MSPL curriculum, extend yourself to guest speakers and connect with people on LinkedIn. You know you’re really growing up when LinkedIn is the preferred app over Twitter and Instagram but it provides you with an opportunity to broaden your network and not to mention connecting with ND/MSPL alumni makes a world of difference.

A post from student blogger Brittany

Thank you such much guys and gals for reading my blog throughout this first semester of the MSPL program. My goal coming into the program was to write this blog from a place of transparency with a pinch of humor. In a way I was hoping this program would be the magic cure for all of the career frustrations I had while in grad school. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the research I was conducting and the relationships I was building but I didn’t want to continue on that career path.

The MSPL program has forced me out of my comfort zone and at some moments made me question myself as a trained scientist, but it has all been for the better. I sucked at claim writing…..SUCKED, but Karen was patient enough to work with me and we’ve both noticed improvements. For the life of me I can’t figure out why I thought I was going to come into the program writing claims like I had been doing this for 20+ years. Learning to write claims is a very humbling experience to say the least.

For people that are interested in the MSPL program that are transitioning from grad school, it will be tough in the beginning and you’ll realize just how comfortable you were at the bench, but eventually you’ll get better at this patent law thing. I’m closing out this semester on a high note and preparing for next year which is already setting up to be extremely busy with interning, IP Clinic and competing with my business team peeps. I look forward to seeing what next semester brings and I will be sure to share all the juicy details with you all. Happy Holidays!

A post from student blogger Brittany

If you’ve been following my blogs from the beginning you know that I just completed my doctorate degree before coming to the MSPL program. To close out the first semester everyone had to present their capstone projects to the director of the program and their respective research faculty member. I was slightly nervous about the presentations due to the fact that I still hadn’t recovered from my dissertation defense from months back.

The day of my first capstone presentation I felt prepared until someone told me minutes before walking over to set up that “oh he’s tough”. The nerves immediately sat in and they were quite evident during the first few minutes of the presentation. I definitely felt as though I was right back in front of my committee members without the benefit of having worked on the project for the last 5 years.

Overall I think that both capstone presentations went well for a variety of reasons. Importantly, it gave the inventors an opportunity to see their invention through the eyes of someone else.  Although the capstone presentation was supposed to be a test of my knowledge regarding the technology and patent law, I saw it as a test for the inventor as well. This was a test for the inventor to ensure that they provided all the necessary information for someone other than themselves to successfully “make, use or sale” their invention.

While discussing patent laws and how the results of the prior art search may influence the patentability of their invention, I could see a slight bit of fear in the eyes of the inventors. I had to simultaneously ease the concerns of the inventors while being honest about the patent prosecution process. Despite the butterflies, the dialog between Karen, the inventors and myself was extremely helpful in determining, which claims needed to be revised, and the most effective way to communicate patent law to my client.

A post from student blogger Josh

Well actually, we tend to go into our first round interviews expecting the worst. For your first time, it actually would be excusable to expect the Spanish Inquisition (I’m sure that the university is less than proud of that particular piece of Catholic heritage). But having just lost my brief phone interview virginity to a lovely firm who promised to call again, I can tell you that the process is not as excruciating as you might imagine.

The main purpose of a half – hour phone interview is to determine whether or not you are an individual selected from the group consisting of axe murderers, criminal masterminds, bumbling idiots, republican congressmen, and garden variety unemployable psychopaths. Side note to you future patent nerds, the prior sentence is the appropriate language for a special type of claim called a Markush claim, wherein you are trying to state that a component of an invention can be formulated from anything within a defined category of “stuff”. The proper format recites alternatives for a component of a claim by saying that the component is “selected from the group consisting of A, B, and C” (this is from section  803.02 of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, and if you quote it to Karen she will give you a gold star and some brownie points, or at least glare at you with slightly less than her ordinary level of scary yet loving disapproval).

Back to the topic of interviews, the process is one containing multiple steps. You send in a resume that basically says “look at how qualified I am to do exactly what you want to hire somebody for”, and this document gets you in the door. While I would advise against committing any form of fraud here, it is expected that your resume will highlight your skills in such a way that you appear fit for the specific position you want. Tell the truth; just make sure it’s the right truth. Since people belonging to the above category of undesirables are occasionally capable of concocting decent resumes (I’d definitely at least talk to a guy who claimed to have hollowed out a volcano to create a laboratory for quasi ethical science experiments), you will then have to speak to someone. I always find it slightly irritating when people spend time completing activities to pad a resume, and yet are unable to string a proper sentence together (looking your way, 50% of every high school honors society and anyone who paid to be part of a non –field specific collegiate Greek organization that hangs cords around your freshly graduated neck). My academic career has certainly been checkered, and many of you reading this are probably higher achievers on paper than myself. In no way does this guarantee you a job. The processes of interviewing and networking, like practicing law, require the ability to effectively communicate with people.

Once you’ve convinced the individuals in human resources that you can write like Hemmingway and interview like a late night host, this is where you get into the more serious discussions and negotiations with partners. Meanwhile, the H.R. folks return to the wanton stack of sexual harassment complaints against that congressman they mistakenly hired last year (sometimes one slips through the cracks, though that’s what you get for hiring someone named Weiner). By now you should already have asked a number of questions of the firm, and have a decent idea of what you’re walking into. You should know what would be expected of someone in your position in terms of time commitment, what the structure of the firm is like, who their big clients are and what type of work they actually want you to do. I have no advice for this phase yet, because as I mentioned earlier, I’m just beginning this process myself. The good news is that the lovely people at the law school career center can help you along every step of the way, from resume reviews to mock interviews, and coach you on what topics to highlight vs. those to avoid. We’re so used to focusing on school that we often forget the entire point of our education is to enter the workplace in a desirable position. While there are many great things about higher education which I wholeheartedly support, let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that it’s magically made us into well – rounded and fully functioning human beings. I would bet that most of you reading this could tell me Newton’s Laws of Motion, but have never changed your own oil (and if you cannot do either of those things, no excuses, you have Google). By making use of the many tools available to students at Notre Dame, you too can eventually make actual money and feel like an adult. If you anticipate this process, as opposed to the Spanish Inquisition, and work to succeed at it (like you have everything else thus far), I can assure you that your odds of being homeless will dramatically decrease.

A post from student blogger Nicole

The date for my final presentation is creeping up.  I am both excited and a little nervous, but I’m leaning toward being more excited than nervous.  I think this is the first time I’m actually excited to give a presentation.  I know everything about my capstone project, and I’ve learned so much during the semester so there’s nothing to be nervous about.  When we were first told to start putting our presentation together I thought to myself, wow it’s way too early to start preparing, but then I really thought about it and realized there weren’t even that many days left in the semester.  Like I said before in one of my other blogs, time really does fly during this program, especially the last month of this semester.

The tricky thing about our final presentation is the audience.  We have to present to both Karen (the director of the patent law program) and our inventor.  We have to prove what we learned throughout the semester to Karen but at the same time we have to teach our inventor the things we learned.  Chances are your inventor doesn’t actually know much about patent law.  Not every student will work with a faculty member that has worked with a past student for the program so it is important to help them understand what is going on for their invention.  Also from what I’ve heard from students that have presented already, I have to be ready for a lot of questions.  I think this is what makes me nervous, but I’m not going to let it take me down!

So for all you newbies coming into this program or deciding to become part of the program, I’ll let you know what has to go into your final presentation.  First off let me terrify you by telling you it has to be 45-60 minutes long.  Yes you read that right, 45-60 minutes.  I remember reading that in an old blog by one of the past students and thinking to myself, how the heck will I be able to talk for 45-60 minutes.  The longest I ever had to present was 10 minutes, and I thought that was asking a lot from me!  But after preparing my slides and reading through them, I realized 45 minutes might not be so bad.  There is a lot of information you have to talk about like describing your project, the search you did to see if anything else out there is similar, patent laws, and your claims.  Explaining the search conducted and anything you found that could be closely related will take up a good chunk.  Also once you find out how long your claims end up being and explaining them to your inventor, you will have plenty of things to talk about for 45 minutes.  So don’t let me terrify you too much and hopefully I didn’t scare anyone away from this program! Wish me luck on my presentation!

A post from student blogger Josh

Who doesn’t love final exams? Everyone! Yay! Your professors hate grading them, you dislike studying for them, and they loom in everyone’s mind from the moment Thanksgiving is finished until you finally put your pen down on the last day of the semester. By the time you start MSPL you’ve had at least 8 rounds of finals, and yet they’re still as annoying and stressful as ever. You certainly don’t want my advice on studying for finals, nor do you want to imitate my study habits. What you do want is to finish those papers, give those talks, take the tests, and then go home and sleep until Christmas rolls around.

So how does one look on the bright side and enjoy life for these next couple of weeks? Well it may sound nerdy, but hearing about my MSPL classmates and their respective capstone projects as they near the completion of a semester’s worth of work is exciting. Seeing everyone in the program come from being unable to claim the chairs we sat in to defending a complex piece of intellectual property for a real inventor is actually extremely cool. It’s a constant reminder of how far we’ve come in just 4 months. I’ve had semesters where I learned new forms of mathematics, or learned to think of mechanical processes in new ways; but I’ve never come so far in learning a whole new skillset in such a short period of time. The fact that we can reasonably be expected to perform at this level may be somewhat stressful, but it’s also a testament to our work ethic and the quality of education we have received at the hands of our mentors.

The fact that we’ve made it this far is worth celebrating; unfortunately, we can’t actually do that until the semester is over. But there is that light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to, and we’ll all make it out just fine. To those of you who read this and aren’t members of MSPL, good luck on your finals. Stay tuned for the mental breakdown I will inevitably have on this page next week, because today instead of doing more work I will be pigging out on leftovers and watching the Seahawks blow a 4^th quarter lead.

A post from student blogger Brittany

I woke up this past Saturday morning feeling refreshed and ready to complete my slide deck for my capstone presentation. I have blackout curtains they I keep closed ALL THE TIME because my sleep is very important, so for a change I decided to open them to let a little light into my bedroom. I was blinded by the amount of white I saw. There had been reports of snowfall but it didn’t seem like people were worried but I don’t think they were prepared for the winter wonderland that would greet them as they left the house. Lucky me I didn’t have to leave the house, it was my first Saturday off from work from my second job (LEARN TO SAY NO) so I was able to sit at home all day and work on upcoming assignments. From sun up to sun down it snowed, the weatherman predicted 7-10 inches and I don’t think his calculations were far off.

While I was fortunate enough to not have to leave my house, working on my slide decks for the upcoming capstone presentations was probably just as tumultuous as battling the elements. By the end of my PhD I was a bit of a pro when it came to making PowerPoint presentations but that was because in part I had been adding and tweaking things as I went along and by the end the information was second nature. The goal of the presentation is to convince my capstone mentor that I understand the new technology well enough to write a good claimset while simultaneously educating him on the most crucial aspects of Patent Law and Prosecution.

Despite the work that went into completing the slide deck, I was astounded by how much I had actually learned and retained throughout the semester. It’s crazy to think that just a little over four months ago I had no idea about what it took to be a patent agent, but now I was drafting claims left and right (disclaimer: they may not be the best claims) and holding conversations with my peers and more senior professionals about patent law.

A post from student blogger Brittany

Sitting in our capstone class and Karen starts spewing deadlines for end of the semester assignments as we greet her with blank stares. My blank stare was due to the fact that unbeknownst to me, I had completely missed an entire aspect of technology regarding one of my capstone projects which meant I had to start from scratch writing a picture claim, my broad claim and my dependent claims. Luckily for me, we have spent so much time discussing drafting claims that I knew the exact approach I would need to take in order to complete all the assignments in a timely fashion.

The aforementioned happened because I had decided to reread the technology disclosure to ensure that I was drafting claims that covered the entire scope of the technology, and then it suddenly became painfully apparent that I was missing an entire claimset. As someone still very new to the field of patent law, I am not surprised that I missed a portion of the new technology. This issue made me realize that I must be be extremely meticulous in my approach to reading technology disclosures and although I am highly educated, I must gather information from the inventor in such a way they I may come across as annoying or lacking knowledge about the background of the disclosed technology. I would hope that this method of gathering essential information from the inventor would allow me to draft the most complete claimset as to appease both the client and the USPTO ( let’s be honest…..it’s pretty difficult to please those guys).

All in all I’m glad that I was able to identify and have time to correct my mistake in a timely manner because I would hate to get embarrassed at the capstone presentation by Karen and/or my inventor. These things and others will happen but pushing forward and getting as much hands-on experience will be the best way to learn from my mistakes. One of our professors once told us that it takes drafting at least 20 patent applications before you feel comfortable enough to determine whether you are good or bad at this patent stuff so I have a few more to go before I make that decision.

A post from student blogger Nicole

There are three important things when dealing with an invention for a patent.  The invention must be nonobvious, novel, and useful.  Before this program I actually thought the only thing you needed to get a patent was a new invention.  Unfortunately I was wrong.  The invention has to be nonobvious, useful, and fit into a statutory category as well.  But what is this nonobvious thing I’m talking about?  How can something be nonobvious?  Well you see, when you have an invention you have to research it to make sure it’s not out there already.  So when you come across two things that when put together create your invention, that means your invention is obvious.  But you were so excited to create this invention! It was so unique in your mind and if it was so obvious then why wasn’t it already invented!   Yeah it doesn’t really make sense.  The world of patent law is an enigma.  But don’t give up too soon because there are patent agents or lawyers out there that will put their blood, sweat, and tears into your invention to find some part of it that can be patented.  Another example of obviousness would be if an existing invention is made with a new material, it would be considered novel but it would also be considered obvious.

Now that you’ve figured out your invention is new and nonobvious, let’s move on to whether or not it’s useful.  It has to be able to function.  So nothing that violates laws of physics is allowed or anything straight up crazy like that Godly powers patent I talked about back in September.  Once you figured out it’s useful you have to determine if it fits into one of the five categories: process, machine, article of manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement.  A process is a series of operations and is as simple as it sounds, like the process of bathing your cat without injury.  A machine is a device consisting of a series of fixed or moving parts and could be something like a machine that turns pages of a book for you.  An article of manufacture is a simple invention with few or no moving parts and could be something as simple as a pencil.  A composition of matter is a unique arrangement of items like glue and plastics.  A new and useful improvement would be something like a method of converting a video game controller into a laser pointer.  I think I’d like to get my hands on one of those game controllers.  Well now that everyone has their facts straight, no one should forget all the important things that go into getting a patent.