Advice on IP Careers for those without technical backgrounds
- Introduction: The golden age of intellectual property law
- Intellectual property in the global marketplace
- Trademarks
- Intellectual property in sports and entertainment
- Legal training
- Positioning yourself for an interesting career
It has not been long since intellectual property was not well regarded. Only within the past thirty years has encouraging innovation come to be seen by judges, members of Congress and others as important to preserving the U.S. standard of living in the face of international trade imbalances -- and intellectual property to be seen as offering needed encouragement for innovation. For example, to secure uniform and reasonable recognition of patent rights, Congress has given one federal court exclusive jurisdiction over all U.S. patents. To reduce the risk of illegal copying, it has also provided that software cannot be rented and enacted laws to forbid bootlegging. Thus, many intellectual property owners regard this as a golden age.
If you are willing to consider spending up to three more years in school, intellectual property offers a wide range of interesting and rewarding careers. Those without technical backgrounds, however, should not pursue an intellectual property career blindly. Unless your undergraduate degree is in a physical science or engineering -- or you have at least a masters (and probably some experience) in biotechnology, patent opportunities will be slim.
As discussed in more detail below, people without technical training are more apt to deal with copyrights, trademarks and special contracts such as licenses or franchise agreements. Yet intellectual property law covering non-technical subjects is often as interesting as that involving technology. An alumnus who is prominent in advertising law said that his wife would not sit close to him when they watched TV because he was always nudging her and saying, "Hey, I was involved with that ad!" Few legal areas are more interesting or involve matters of such wide impact.
It has been estimated that industries including software, films, television shows and music, represent about 5% of the U.S. gross domestic product. If the Internet were included, it would be much larger. You probably have heard about recent cases concerning music downloading and domain name disputes, for example. Legal professionals involved in such cases were surely well paid but also found many opportunities to discuss them, within the bounds of confidentiality, in social settings.
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Since Congress ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S., Canada and Mexico has become a single free trade area comprising nearly 400 million people with a combined gross annual profit of over $7 trillion. Much stronger intellectual property protection in Mexico was part of the agreement.
U.S. companies have long complained about losing tens of billions of dollars annually to uncompensated use of intellectual property. This played a major role in their promoting the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). That agreement is expected not only to facilitate world-wide movement of goods but also to provide stronger global intellectual property protection. Sponsors claim that GATT has added hundreds of billions of dollars to world trade.
Such things would not happeni if other countries, too, did not recognize the role of intellectual property in improving general standards of living. I see evidence of this each year when new classes of mostly foreign students enroll in intellectual property masters programs at Pierce Law.
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Trademark and related law probably represents the largest opportunity for lawyers without strong technical training. In the U.S., trademarks are hard to avoid. Surely as a child you asked your parents for a Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake doll, Lego building blocks or Hot Wheels cars. More recently, you may have lusted over a Corvette or Ferarri -- or actually considered buying a Ford or Honda automobile. Likewise, you probably have a preference for Burger King, McDonalds or Wendys food; for Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper soft drinks.
Marks are, thus, at least as valuable to consumers wishing to purchase goods they favor or to avoid others. If trademarks did not exist, consumers would probably invent a substitue. Seen this way, trademarks protect consumers as much as companies that own them.
Trademark lawyers and paralegals spend considerable time tending to registrations of domain names, as well as the registration of marks with various state governments and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington. D.C. They also make sure that the same or confusingly similar names are not used by unrelated firms, take action to prevent counterfeit goods from being sold and try to educate the media and the public on the importance of using marks correctly. With regard to the last, you may have seen ads asking you not to call products Xerox, Kleenex or Bandaid when you have no idea who made them (and may not care).
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Until recently, purchasers of products bearing the name of a college or professional sports team would not have assumed any connection. However, the situation has changed dramatically. Various measures are now taken to regulate the quality of merchandise and to ensure that institutions whose logos are used share income through trademark licensing.
Based on an article published by the International Trademark Association, the market for licensed baseball-related merchandise, alone, has grown about ten times since 1986 and represents at least $2.5 billion in sales. This encourages counterfeit goods. The same article notes that hundreds of thousand of items, worth about $1 million were seized during the weeks before games -- just in cities hosting Super Bowls.
The Olympics.
As Alexandra Alter reported in an August 1, 2008, Wall Street Journal article, the U.S. Olympic Committee has taken action against over 1000 trademark violations since 1986. Indeed, in a case reported at 483 U.S. 522, it prevailed (with partial or total dissents by four justices) in a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision against the Gay Olympics. Also, as the dates of Olympics appoach, millions of dollars worth of unauthorized merchandise are sezed. Imagine how much is earned through sale of licensed goods!
Now, add music, movies and toys. Here too, licensing others to use trademarks is usually an important source of income. Advertising budgets for related merchandise often are several times larger than the advertising budgets for movies themselves!
Again, famous (living and fictional) figures are highly sought for endorsements, and attorneys are often needed. For example, when companies can't get what they want, or at a price they're willing to pay, they sometimes resort to other measures. When one featured a Bette Midler sound-alike singer in an ad, a court ordered it to cease and to pay damages. In another case, the hostess of Wheel of Fortune recovered $400,000 for use in an ad of a robot that only vaguely resembled her.
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College graduates need not pursue any particular line of study to be accepted into law school. An acceptable score on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and good grades are important, as are writing ability, initiative, curiosity and maturity. Grades usually get close scrutiny, but people who take easy courses or attend schools suffering severe grade inflation gain no advantage. No law school is easy; if they somehow gain admission, people who have not been challenged in undergraduate school will be hard-pressed to succeed.
Professors rarely, if ever, presume that students in law classes have any particular background. One of the great things about teaching and studying law is the extremely diverse educations and experiences that students bring. Professors certainly do not assume that students took undergraduate "law" courses. Do not worry if you have not. On the contrary, one student did miserably in one of my courses after doing well in an undergraduate class that had used the very same book! She did not appreciate that the same subject matter may be approached very differently inside and outside of law schools.
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On August 11, 2008, Law360, a newswire for business lawyers, discussed a survey that found intellectual property lawyers at the 250 largest law firms in the U.S. to be better paid than other lawyers and more satisfied with their jobs. What they meant by "intellectual property lawyers," is unclear, but just about any lawyer (without or without technical training) can do copyright, trademark or other intellectual property work unrelated to patents. As intellectual property becomes more popular in law schools, competition for jobs is often intense. Here are several ways to increase the odds of landing any legal job -- including one in intellectual property.
First, people with relevant non-legal backgrounds have advantages. All else equal, clients want lawyers with experience or education related to their business. For example, having been a copywriter in an advertising firm will be helpful if one later seeks to represent such firms. Likewise, prior careers in sports or entertainment can be very helpful.
Second, intellectual property-related courses taken in law school can help. Law schools recognize this. Few offered even a single survey course a few years ago, but its growing global importance has induced many to increase intellectual property offerings. Several have quite recently added specialized programs. Schools that have not done so and offer little may emphasize the need for basic legal understanding. This is disingenuous at best.
- Basic curricula are very similar everywhere. Subjects such as civil and criminal procedure, contracts, property and constitutional law are required. Also, all schools offer, if they do not require, courses such as evidence. Students take them because the subjects are on bar exams.
- Required and "bar" courses aside, a solid third of the 85-90 semester hours needed for a J.D. remain. It seems foolish not to take advantage of opportunities to learn about areas of interest if possible.
- Electives, of necessity, also cover basic legal topics -- perhaps more effectively by demonstrating how the bar-tested topics bear on problems of particular student interest. This could explain why one study found enrollment in bar-tested courses not to correlate nearly as strongly with bar passage as one might expect.
Third, surveys often indicate that oral and written communication skills are sought by hiring lawyers more than substantive legal knowledge. In a sense this is reflected in fascination with grades and law review experience. To make good grades, one must not only know the law, but also be able to apply it and effectively communicate the results. In any case, people interested in particular legal careers can improve their understanding, demonstrate their commitment and otherwise improve their chances of getting the job they want by writing and editing papers, as well as by participating in oral competitions.
Fourth, in the global marketplace, knowledge of foreign languages and culture is increasingly important. If you speak Arabic, approach law firms with clients who trade heavily in the Middle East. Similarly, given the growing importance of the Pacific Rim, you could vastly improve your chances for employment by knowing conversational Japanese or Chinese. As the U.S., Canada and Mexico become a single market, Spanish and French are increasingly important. Also, foreign clients appreciate it when lawyers know something about their language and culture.
Last, but hardly least, students should try their best to excel -- not just in IP courses. Ultimately success is likely to flow from a a range of knowledge and an assortment of related skills. Here is a particularly interesting career story which is linked courtesy of the magazine, GC New England .
Thanks to David J. Connaughton, 2010 Pierce Law J.D. candidate. for help in revising this discussion.
