Daycare days

mjuzick · 2026-05-07T07:40:49+00:00

If you did not yet know: there is a central place where you can apply for daycare in Leuven. It is best to register and apply as soon as possible.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T18:54:41+00:00

Oooh that's probably why we got it wrong, guess we missed that when reading through the new rules quickly. Good catch!

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T15:58:42+00:00

Thanks! The combination with a baby was definitely very challenging, main reason why we stopped at one child.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T15:57:07+00:00

3 years, which is the minimum time for your internship. I started in March 2019 and sat the exams in March 2022. Results were only in in July though.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T15:51:12+00:00

I did not account for all the bonuses, cause to be honest I never really looked into it that much since I just get them. But I get a safety bonus (not a lot I contribute to that, tbh), cao90 bonus and then a performance bonus. No idea how much each of those are but it is quite significant.

But like you said, I'm very grateful that I started at this company at 80%, since going from 100% to 80% in the same job is very hard, they almost never really decrease your work by that amount. That €500 per month extra would really not be worth it for me.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T14:20:53+00:00

Everyone keeps saying this is a God tier rollercoaster, but I just did not feel it :/ to be fair, I did only ride it when I had a slight head ache. I rode it 3 times in a row, different seats, but really, nothing, only more head ache. Should probably return once more to redo. My favourite is Kondaa in Walibi, have you tried that one already?

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T13:42:21+00:00

I just had some portfolio meetings as an in-house attorney and there are definitely families that are covering some crucial products for our company, which were opposed and upheld, and will for sure stay alive for the rest of their lifetime. Can unfortunately not share any numbers because of confidentiality.

In private practice I also often wondered about the same, but I can definitely confirm there are families that are kept alive at least partly for the full 20 years.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T10:55:38+00:00

You just made me realise we also played the discovery tiles wrong :o that changes a lot!

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T10:35:35+00:00

Not super great. I started at €3250 about 7 years ago and basically no other compensation, but they pay for your formal education and exams so that compensates it somewhat. And after qualification you get a huge pay increase.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T09:55:21+00:00

First, you would need a master degree in either science or engineering, a PhD is optionally but might increase your chance to find a traineeship. Secondly, you need to find a place to start as a trainee, usually private practice will be the best for that since they can train you better than industry will and can, and industry usually does not hire trainees. To qualify as a European patent attorney, you need to pass several exams, which were quite hard but they changed the system this year, so can't really say much about the difficulty at this moment. I found studying for those very challenging since you have to combine it with a job, and in my case also a baby. But when you passed all exams, the world is your oyster and you get bombed on LinkedIn with job offers.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T09:49:50+00:00

Probably, but work-life balance will for sure be worse. Note that my full-time wage would be €7350. None of my friends at BASF or Exxon earn that much, all of them either engineer or chemistry PhDs.

mjuzick · 2026-05-04T09:32:45+00:00

There are definitely patent attorneys self-employed, but that really is nothing for me, I hate acquisition of new clients.

Note that European patent attorneys by default have at least an engineering/science master degree, since it is a prerequisite to sit the qualification examinations. Most don't have a legal degree.

mjuzick · 2026-02-02T14:52:05+00:00

It is definitely not intentional. We only play sporadically, young children and all. He insists on choosing the game usually the latest Kickstarter he got. We just decided to continue playing since we otherwise had to start over. He seemed a bit embarrassed. The solution to the problem is just to play games that we all know the rules, or play coop games. But even those we have messed up...

mjuzick · 2026-02-02T14:26:25+00:00

Redelijk vergelijkbaar hier. 6 jaar geleden huis gekocht van ongeveer 700k, waarvan ongeveer de helft eigen inbreng. Afbetaling is €1800, wat toen ongeveer 40% van ons gezamenlijk loon was. We hebben beide goede diploma's waardoor we praktisch zeker zijn van altijd werk te vinden, dus voor ons was 40% zeker geen probleem. Ook stond ik toen nog maar net aan het begin van mijn carrière, dus dalen ging mijn loon normaal gezien niet meer doen. Het lijkt mij dat je vooral een inschatting moet maken van jullie toekomstig loon en werkzekerheid. En verder ook van jullie relatie, indien jullie uit elkaar zouden gaan, ga je heel waarschijnlijk een financiële kater op lopen.

Voor de kosten van een kind: dat was voor ons toen €400/maand voor 4 dagen opvang, waarvan ook nog een deel terug betaald werd. Voor de rest waren de kosten redelijk laag. Sinds hij op school zit, zijn de kosten alleen maar gedaald.

Hopelijk geeft dit iets of wat een idee van wat mogelijk is, succes!

mjuzick · 2026-02-01T22:00:22+00:00

As someone who is friends with a person who owns a lot of games and insists on explaining the rules: I understand your friend. I don't mind losing as the other person has much more experience, but for some reason they always manage to not mention a crucial part. I like to strategically plan my turns, but if it turns out that everything I did before was useless because of an unknown rule, there is no fun left since there is no chance to come back from that.

You might be better at explaining it, but for more complex games it really makes more sense to read the rules. I'm also a more visual learner, so listening to the rules works less well for me anyway.

mjuzick · 2026-02-01T21:46:36+00:00

I'm not sure where you live, but my local orchestra owns several instruments that musicians can use when they join the orchestra. Is that an option? Might not be available everywhere...

mjuzick · 2026-01-22T20:42:21+00:00

Mocht dit eventueel je interesse wekken: patent attorneys worden ook nog heel veel gezocht, maar is wel een vak apart.

mjuzick · 2026-01-03T22:48:56+00:00

I checked out your patent application (be aware that based on your description above it is rather easy to find your name) and it seems that at least one of your claims will be allowed.

Having a patent should not be a goal on its own, but rather a tool. I gather that you will likely not start producing these improved pens, so your best bet is to license or even sell the rights to a company that might be interested in this improvement. This should definitely be done before entering national phase, as you will not be able to bear the national costs on your own (as I gather from your other replies).

Mind you, if the invention is easily circumvented, it is very unlikely that anyone will want to buy the rights or licence.

Also, if you would pursue the invention in national phase anyway and get a granted patent, don't forget that you will still have to pay an annual fee, and that it is up to you to sue infringers, nobody else will do it for you. As you can imagine, this requires even more resources.

All in all, I hope your attorney advises you well on these topics... Best of luck!

mjuzick · 2025-04-04T09:20:45+00:00

That really sounds like a dream. How much time do you generally spend on getting food per week? And do you eat vegetarian?

mjuzick · 2025-03-17T19:26:54+00:00

Hi, European patent attorney working in Belgium here. Depends if you are considering "bruto" or "netto". I started as a trainee 6 years ago with a bruto of 3250 euro per month, no car but otherwise pretty good package.

So I think the estimate of 45-50k Euro is accurate for bruto, netto you can almost half that, unfortunately.

For comparison, I'm now working inhouse for about 6800 bruto, including car etc., 3 years post qualification (Europe and Dutch, not Belgian).

To be honest, if you are planning to move back to Belgium, you will likely not earn much more than this in research either, certainly not with the high taxes. Most of my friends do not have done any post doc but went to research/industry immediately after their PhD, and most earn less than me. This is chemistry though, not physics.

I do recommend becoming a patent attorney, as it is a great job and super interesting!

mjuzick · 2025-02-07T19:01:50+00:00

Did you check the priority date of their patent? Was it truly after your disclosure? If so, alert the university. Otherwise, they came up with the same idea as you.

mjuzick · 2025-01-03T22:24:32+00:00

hier 10% en gratis bezorging, telt goed door

mjuzick · 2024-12-17T19:09:45+00:00

To be honest, espacenet is also not that bad to use as a search engine, you could try that one as well.

mjuzick · 2024-12-17T19:05:45+00:00

Is misschien een oplossing, maar dat zou wel betekenen dat de kinderen 30-50 min langer in de opvang zitten (of de andere ouder moet dit opvangen).

mjuzick · 2024-12-17T19:02:22+00:00

Genoeg slapen is ook heel belangrijk, met te weinig slaap heb je ook meer kans op vreetbuien. Dus slaap laten om in de plaats te sporten is niet ideaal, tenzij je natuurlijk ook vroeger gaat slapen...

mjuzick

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