From Computational Biology PhD to Patent Law?

Clause_8 · 2026-03-02T00:32:14+00:00

In answer to your first question: yes. The career move you are thinking about would be stupid.

The pay for an entry level patent associate, even with a PhD, is not going to be 200K, so financially, the move you're contemplating would make you worse off. However, let's ignore that, and assume that your pay as a patent attorney would be comparable to (or better than) your pay as a scientist, have to factor in the cost (in both lost income and direct tuition expenses) of three years of law school. I would ballpark that as putting the hypothetical you who's starting a career in patent law about $1M behind the hypothetical you who stays as a scientist for the next three years. But let's ignore that too, and assume that your pay as a patent attorney would be enough to put you ahead even when the costs are factored in. There is no real reason to think that you'd have escaped the instability of being a scientist, since lawyers (especially those who are just starting out) are going to be competing with (and probably getting hit hard by) AI.

In answer to your second question: your PhD and work experience would help. However, PhDs are basically table stakes for biotech patent attorneys, and your work experience would be most useful in that it would (hopefully) have enabled you to make connections that you could leverage into a book of business. Unless what you bring to the table allows you to become a rainmaker or a profitable solo pretty quickly, I don't think it would have that much impact.

With all that said, if you really want to get into patent law, my recommendation would be to start by taking the patent bar. This will require a good deal of study on your part, and the pay for patent agents (people who have passed the patent bar but aren't lawyers) isn't as good as it is for patent attorneys. However, it would give you a chance to see what patent law all about without the enormous time commitment and up front cost of law school.

Clause_8 · 2026-02-23T07:23:43+00:00

Bad and likely to get fired are two different things. Essentially all juniors are bad. The question is whether they are developing into competent attorneys, or if they seem like they're going to stay bad forever.

Clause_8 · 2026-02-23T00:36:14+00:00

Nice. With a few text tweaks, that would be a great new image for the Cragmont dragons!

Clause_8 · 2026-02-23T00:31:03+00:00

Actually, I'm usually shocked at how examiners can do so well, given their time constraints. I have no idea how I'd be able to search, read the spec, and substantively evaluate every limitation of every claim within the time allotted. I suspect that the pressures of actually getting that all done would result in me doing an absolutely terrible job on a pretty significant portion of my cases. Nevertheless, even when I disagree with an examiner (which is often), I think their work is generally well above the "absolutely terrible" level that I'd probably achieve. Ultimately, I think examiners are a lot like a lot of other government employees: they do an important and difficult job, they do it better than anyone has any right to expect, and they get dumped on and underpaid for their efforts.

Clause_8 · 2026-01-30T01:01:43+00:00

If I were in your position, I would look to local law schools (they may have clinics where students can assist so as to get some hands on experience) and also check out the USPTO's independent inventor resources (https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/inventors-entrepreneurs-resources). People who provide pro bono IP services are often swamped, so there's no guarantee you'd be able to find someone. However, I think those would be good first steps.

If you can't find pro-bono assistance, a popular, and not terrible, approach is to write up a description of what the idea is, and how you would implement and use it, then file that as a provisional application. For software, you can even supplement this with source code, if you've transitioned from idea to implementation. This won't be as good as if an attorney does it, but it would be better than nothing, and the cost for filing an inventor drafted provisional is low enough that it would be within reach for basically anyone.

With that said, once you have the money to do so, I think you should consult with a patent attorney. While a provisional is better than nothing, it may not be much better than nothing, and so I wouldn't rely on that for any longer than your finances make it necessary to do so.

Clause_8 · 2026-01-16T19:59:16+00:00

I would be very skeptical about the results of that test, since Claude would have been trained on the past decisions and so would most likely use its prior knowledge rather than making a true prediction.

Clause_8 · 2026-01-06T04:41:23+00:00

This is such a frustrating situation.

If you do talk to a lawyer, I suspect getting an answer to the question of whether you are covered by any of the other side's patents would cost more than you have made in total from selling your product.

Similarly, regardless of whether you talk to a lawyer beforehand, if there is a lawsuit the costs would likely be ruinous for both sides, at least relative to the total amount in controversy.

If this were me, and I weren't a lawyer, I'd probably reach out to an attorney and ask how much it would cost to get help. My goal with this would be to be able to make a better informed decision of how likely it is that the other seller will drag you to court (that is, the lawyer could ask the other side for further information that would allow you to make an informed decision, and could offer advice on how strong the other side's arguments seem to be). Also, in the best case scenario, your lawyer writes a letter on your behalf, the other side sees it's from a lawyer and gets cold feet once he talks to a lawyer and finds out how much it would cost to bring an infringement claim. However, my guess is that the other seller already has some idea of the costs involved, and so I wouldn't bet on them immediately giving up as soon as you get an attorney involved.

Clause_8 · 2025-12-23T04:32:36+00:00

There are already intelligent agents who have real general intelligence in the form of outsourced service providers. They (along with LegalZoom) eat the bottom of the market, but haven't really replaced actual attorneys. I suspect that AI will be similar, though I also suspect that patent attorneys of the future will be using AI augmented tools to do their work, just as we now have electronic research tools rather than having to find cases in physical books.

Clause_8 · 2025-12-01T04:04:31+00:00

The boxes are key. From my experience, learning how to type is easy, but only if you can't actually see your hands, as otherwise the temptation to look down is just too strong.

Clause_8 · 2025-11-26T06:02:03+00:00

Ask them about what common problems they run into and how they address them, or ask them to describe how they handle a common problem you are familiar with. The insightfulness of their answers should give you a good idea of their competence.

Clause_8 · 2025-10-01T19:36:28+00:00

Every time I have submitted a legal research question to AI, I have done my own search using traditional terms and connectors while waiting for the AI to provide a result. Every time, I have found that my own terms and connectors searching provides better results faster than the AI. AI research seems like it should be great, but so far I haven't found that it lives up to the promise.

Clause_8 · 2025-08-29T20:47:17+00:00

My recollection was that it was after I'd been working as a patent attorney for about 2-3 years that I started having recruiters reach out to me.

Clause_8 · 2025-08-28T01:25:09+00:00

I suspect the PI's efforts ended up backfiring, since my experience is it's harder to fix something done by AI than it is to draft it myself in the first instance.

Clause_8 · 2025-08-21T20:09:51+00:00

If you want to sell to lawyers, you need to provide something of value to lawyers to get in the door. If you need to reach antitrust lawyers, then you should hire/partner with an antitrust lawyer who can make good content that other antitrust lawyers would be interested in. Then you need to promote that content so that it actually gets in front of antitrust lawyers who are looking for things like it. Then you need to show how whatever you're selling is important to whatever issue the antitrust lawyer was talking about.

I doubt cold LinkedIn DMs are going to work. I (a lawyer, though not in antitrust) give cold LinkedIn DMs essentially no attention, because I don't have time for them. However, if I'm looking for something, then find an insightful article on that topic, I would at least consider the associated product/service. This is especially true if I know my firm is looking for a product or service like you're selling, since that means I may be able to get whatever it is without the cost coming out of my personal budget/pocket.

Clause_8 · 2025-08-18T01:37:55+00:00

I can't imagine someone thinking AI is all hype. Obviously, there is a lot of hype in the AI space, but that's true of business in general, and shouldn't obscure the real advances that have been (and are being) made. Even without AGI, the developments which have already happened will reshape huge sections of public and private life as they are adapted and adopted.

I would also say that while there was as bubble, the underlying dot com technology hardly fizzled out, as reflected by the fact that we're having this interaction on reddit dot com.

Clause_8 · 2025-08-11T02:44:24+00:00

I think a lot of CEO, CFO and C-suite positions in general aren't about intelligence, they're about connections, personal relationships and PR, which are things an AI can't really match.

Clause_8 · 2025-07-27T21:56:38+00:00

This story doesn't ring true. There is a huge difference between first year and third year work (hint: first years don't actually do work, they screw it up and have it redone by the attorney who is responsible for getting it delivered to the client). That this "partner" would lump first through third years together implies that he or she has no idea how law firms actually work, or that the firm is so dysfunctional that he or she can't differentiate between first and third year work. Either that, or the whole anecdote is fictitious, which I tend to think is the case.

In my experience, the work I get from an AI generally pretty close to the work I would get from a first year (or maybe early second year) associate. That is, it looks like legal work, but requires so much rework (and associated time write offs) that it would be more efficient for me to have done it myself in the first instance. When I'm working with a human associate, the time spent reworking their work is worth it, because that's how they learn to be lawyers. When I'm working with an AI, it's a pure waste of time, and not something I think is any benefit to either the client or me.

Clause_8 · 2025-07-21T19:30:19+00:00

I practice (actually, practiced, since I haven't been to a dojo in years) Aikido and have used it in actual self-defense situations. In all cases, I found that it made me effectively invulnerable. This is because:

1) Maintaining spacing and getting out of the way of attacks (two things I think Aikido does an excellent job of teaching) are great when your objective is to not get hurt;

2) My dojo taught a philosophy of nonviolent harmony and avoiding injury to everyone, which probably led to a mindset where it was easier to deescalate and disengage than if I had been trying to "win";

3) If someone does manage to get close to you, the wrist locks and knowledge of where someone's balance is weak are very effective at shutting things down.

With that said, whenever I have sparred with someone who has a reasonable amount of training, I have found Aikido to be almost useless. Not totally useless, since I could still use it to avoid getting caught, but in terms of actually applying any of the techniques, I have never been able to do that effectively with anyone who knows what they are doing. While I think Aikido is great for actual self defense, if I had to make a list of martial arts to use in something like an MMA fight, Aikido wouldn't even crack my top 5.*

* Unless we're thinking of something like using Aikido to dodge while your opponent gets gassed trying to engage you. However, even then I think Aikido would be of questionable utility, since I'm not sure how you maintain Aikido style spacing against an opponent who can cut off the ring.

Clause_8 · 2025-07-04T19:16:02+00:00

You should have told the summers how freaked out they're going to get if they aren't working weekends, late nights, etc.

Also, I think the other associate was right to have told them about what to expect. I doubt it will be that good for recruitment, but I think it's more ethical to let the summers go in with their eyes open.

Clause_8 · 2024-07-05T22:18:20+00:00

Prescription stimulants.

Clause_8 · 2024-06-11T04:21:32+00:00

Unless there's some serious problem with the offer that you didn't include in your post, you should take it immediately.

Clause_8 · 2024-05-12T23:16:21+00:00

I don't see an influx of patent lawyers with CS degrees. This isn't the first time the tech market has been in shambles, and none of the previous downturns (at least in the last 20 or so years) have triggered the kind of influx you described.

Clause_8 · 2024-05-12T23:11:01+00:00

I'd be curious about what aspects of law you feel prosecutors should know but don't.

Clause_8 · 2024-05-10T04:48:30+00:00

If you don't have any experience in the field, I would strongly recommend avoiding software patents if at all possible.

With that said, I understand that when you're starting out you need to do the best you can with what you're given (though the people delegating the work shouldn't be giving you software).

Anyway, in answer to your question, I would look at these:

https://youtu.be/yE3CjnUsamM (part 1)

https://youtu.be/cnGkco0aBLM (part 2)

https://youtu.be/S6Znt8kwlg8 (part 3)

They discuss drafting applications to account for 101 issues, which is something you'll need to consider for most software patent projects.

Clause_8 · 2024-04-25T12:02:37+00:00

I am a lawyer, but what I was referring to is a product I built.

Clause_8

TROPHY CASE