I don't have a technical background. I studied a useless liberal arts subject at a big state school. OTOH, I did go to a prestigious law school.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24233829)

would your life be better or worse w/ CSEE background

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24233844)

To answer the question above, my life would only be easier with a CS or other tech degree in the sense that I would have better exit options and also better prospects in private practice. I am much less marketable both in and outside the firm since I don't have the credential. In terms of actually handling the technical side of cases, though, I think having the background would only help a little bit. I do just fine without it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24233958)

agreed on handling the tech side of cases. but clients have a misunderstanding about this, which is a complicating factor and makes in-house opportunities for non-tech degrees so rare.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24234013)

Also, contrary to the conventional wisdom around here, some of my litigation colleagues have been able to go in house to do more general corporatey in-house stuff, but not a lot of them.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24234126)

I think the poster above was referring to in-house jobs overseeing IP litigation or the like. There are jobs like that, and there are even non-technical people in those jobs, but they are few and far between.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24239215)

To begin with, you don't need a STEM degree to "interact with engineers." Literally anybody can "interact with engineers." They are normal people. As a patent litigator, I interact with engineers all the time. They are our clients and our inventors and our fact witnesses. There is nothing particularly challenging about talking with them. I do think that it is a special skill to sit down with an inventor and discover the true / most profitable nature and scope of their invention. But that's just tautological. Of course patent prosecutors are better patent prosecutors.

What you are also missing is that your average STEM degree patent prosecutor is not particularly well suited "to understand from a patent law perspective what is important for the business." Someone who deals with infringement suits is usually better situated than a patent prosecutor to say, at the level of inquiry relevant to a business person, what is important for the business from a patent law perspective. Life-long prosecutors don't know nearly as much as a litigator (if they know anything at all) about determining a patent's value, what it would cost to realize that value, or the risks involved, among other things. Those are the kinds of things business people want to know about their patents. As far as I know, these things are not taught in the average STEM curriculum either. That is why most large companies have separate in-house lawyers responsible for overseeing prosecution and litigation, and have experienced patent litigators (usually former partners at large law firms, and not always STEM people) overseeing their enforcement and defense efforts.

You are right that most in house job postings for patent prosecutors ask for someone with some litigation experience. In my experience, those lawyers don't have any meaningful involvement in active cases. They keep abreast of what's going on and get on calls, but they don't have enough experience or authority to override the judgment of the senior outside counsel / trial lawyer who is running the show. Nor do they have the responsibility to the business people or for the bottom line that the in house former litigator has. They would be better served just letting prosecutors do what they do.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24241713)

Spending months or years on a single giant patent litigation like biglaw litigators do is not conducive to developing valuable skills for most in-house jobs, IP or not. IHC hired to oversee huge litigations exist, but there aren't many of them.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24241860)

All 12 require or strongly prefer PTO registration + prosecution experience. About half also want some pre-litigation experience, analyzing/negotiating basic license agreements, etc.

I don't see any listings for experience with 100-million dollar patent litigation, spending thousands of hours putting together discovery requests, giant infringement/invalidity contention documents, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24242039)

CS/EE (with some pros experience) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> CS/EE (all litgation) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no CS/EE (all litigation) = no in-house

There was also some question as to whether this hiring pattern is justified. The answer is yes, it is justified.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24242399)

Also, although CS/EE is big and growing and gets all the attention, there is still and probably always will be a sizable chunk of patent litigation in other industries.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24234207)

I agree with one of the posters above who characterized this as more of a perception problem than anything else. I work with CSEE people all the time. In most cases they have to learn the patented technology more or less from scratch just like me. The main difference I've seen is that these people are almost universally competent at handling the technical side of the case once they learn how to play the game. (I assume that this is because getting a STEM degree is a lot more technically challenging than doing an infringement chart.) Meanwhile, some of the liberal arts people who wind up in IP lit turn out not competent at handling the technical side of these cases and they wind up confined to written discovery and other ancillary tasks. The flip side is that a lot of the STEM folks are not great speakers or writers, at least not at first, while most liberal arts majors who went on to prestigious law schools are pretty good at one or both of these things.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2387367&forum_id=2#24239162)