Find the answers to your questions with this Mewburn Ellis Q&A. Find out more about Mewburn Ellis opportunities here.
The Questions
What would you consider to be the best way to get noticed when applying for graduate positions at Mewburn Ellis? ➜
What advice can you give someone who is a final year science PhD student and wishes to become a patent attorney? ➜
There appear to be more trainee patent attorney positions for candidates with Electronics/Physics backgrounds compared to those Life Science graduates. Is this a reflection of a national decline in Life Science based patent applications? ➜
To be successful as a patent lawyer is it necessary to have studied at postgraduate level? If not, is it important to have studied a science at A level? ➜
If Europe adopts a single patent, do you believe this will help the patent profession in the UK continue to grow and thrive? ➜
If someone becomes a patent attorney in the UK, how easy is it to emigrate outside the EU to practice? ➜
Is it possible for a law student to do a summer or winter internship with you? ➜
Does Mewburn Ellis consider overseas applications from international students? ➜
Is it an advantage to speak more than one language for a career in patents? ➜
In the selection process for new graduate recruits, how much importance do you place on the level of degree earned? Is a BSc at a disadvantage when compared with a Masters or PhD? ➜
Are there different routes for the who have a PhD in relation to the level of experience they may have compared to undergraduates? ➜
Does Mewburn Ellis provide the opportunity to work abroad? Are there any secondment opportunities? ➜
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The Answers
What would you consider to be the best way to get noticed when applying for graduate positions at Mewburn Ellis?
Beena, Kingston University
What do Mewburn Ellis look for in an application?
Michael, Queen Mary, University of London
What advice would you give to a Life Science graduate who wished to make their application stand out?
Laura, Bristol University
The first requirement in our recruitment process is a good degree in a science subject. We also look at A-level qualifications as an indicator of breadth of scientific interest and knowledge but greater weight is placed on the degree qualification, naturally if you’ve studied at Masters or PhD level we would consider this closely too.
At Mewburn Ellis we also ask candidates to submit written work (as explained during the application process). These tend to be descriptive exercises which give us an idea of the way candidates approach detailed scientific writing and also allow candidates to demonstrate the careful and precise use of language that form the basis of much of the job. Careful attention to this written work is probably the best way to get your application noticed at Mewburn Ellis.
We receive a large number of applications with good degrees and high A-level grades so these written exercises are a good opportunity for candidates to demonstrate the precise descriptive skills that we are looking for. The same advice applies to all scientific backgrounds; a good scientific degree backed-up by carefully considered written exercises.
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What advice can you give someone who is a final year science PhD student and wishes to become a patent attorney?
Beena, Kingston University
Research the career before you start your applications. The IP Careers guide is a good starting point and gives a lot of information about the career in general and the information about different firms is useful to help identify your preferred targets. However, there are only a relatively small number of trainee positions in the profession as a whole so I would certainly recommend applying to a range of different firms to maximise your chances of success. Some companies, run open days or short internship opportunities to give a flavour of what the job involves and to allow you to get a feel for the company. Take advantage of these if you can.
With all jobs, careful preparation of your application is important but perhaps even more so when applying for patent attorney trainee positions where careful use of language and attention to detail are a major part of the job. So, take great care in preparing you applications; you would be surprised how many applicants do not read the employers application instructions properly or submit application forms with typos and other errors.
The transferable skills from research to being a patent attorney are mostly communication skills; especially written communication. Writing a PhD thesis will undoubtedly help with this but is no means essential so any other practice you can get writing papers or communicating scientific ideas to a lay audience is helpful in the job and is a nice addition to your CV.
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To be successful as a patent lawyer is it necessary to have studied at postgraduate level? If not, is it important to have studied a science at A level?
Owen, University of Manchester
Is a PhD a prerequisite to joining your firm as a trainee patent attorney?
Michael, Queen Mary, University of London
On the whole at Mewburn Ellis we do not make any distinction between candidates with postgraduate degrees and those applying directly from a first degree course. Somewhere around 50% of our attorneys hold some form of postgraduate science degree. Overall we place most importance on a good first degree in a science subject and a broad-based science knowledge. However, within each scientific practice we sometimes have a specialist need which means further studies in those specific specialisms can be useful.
I do not think it is necessary to study at postgraduate level to be a successful patent attorney. In fact, it is probably more important to have studied science subjects at A-level to gain a broader scientific background.
The only absolute requirement for most firms is that candidates must hold a degree in a scientific discipline. This is a requirement set by the European Patent Office before a person can sit the exams to qualify as a European patent attorney (which most firms ask trainees to do).
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If someone becomes a patent attorney in the UK, how easy is it to emigrate outside the EU to practice?
Ben, University of Warwick
The qualifications as a European patent attorney and national patent attorney are not directly transferable to patent systems outside the EU. So if you qualify as a patent attorney in Europe and decide to emigrate outside the EU, you would need to re-qualify in your new country to be able to practice at that patent office.
However, many of the principals of patent law are the same or similar in other jurisdictions so much of your knowledge of European law and practical attorney skills of document analysis and technical writing would be transferable so you would not be completely re-starting your training.
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Is it possible for a law student to do a summer or winter internship with you?
Ivan, Cardiff University
We currently offer two types of internship at Mewburn Ellis.
One is a week-long paid internship, this is usually within a specific specialism and features pre-planned activity specifically designed to provide interns with intensive, hands-on practical learning sessions along with the opportunity to meet a variety of people from around the firm who are working in the role. It features a variety of talks and exercises that try to briefly illustrate the type of tasks that a patent attorney might encounter and should help delegates understand how a scientific background can be used in the career and how this then applies to the IP context.
The other is a professional PhD placement usually for those in their final year where delegates complete a research-based project to deliver a commercially relevant piece in their field. This is less about learning about the profession and more focussed on putting the PhD subject into a commercial context and receiving professional guidance, mentoring and networking opportunities whilst helping individuals to develop personally and professionally.
Both are pre-organised programmes and deliver specific outcomes for the individuals (and our firm), we cannot unfortunately offer ad hoc internship opportunities. The job is very varied so it’s not easy to give a thorough idea of what it involves during a short ad hoc placement; also, a reasonable portion of the work that we handle is confidential so we would need to take precautions to avoid any possible disclosures of information and to satisfy our clients that we are handling their information with an appropriate level of security.
Another option is our live Q&A webinar, usually running every year in August, this is a well attended online discussion with a panel of attorneys and gives the attendees a chance to hear directly from our people about our profession and ask questions. This opportunity is advertised on IPCareers.
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Does Mewburn Ellis consider overseas applications from international students?
Arianna, LMU Munich and Ivan, Cardiff University
Yes but with some restrictions.
The main hurdle is that the European Patent Office require candidates to be a national of a European country (strictly speaking it must be a European country that has signed-up to the European Patent Convention – a list can be found here) before they can be entered onto the register of European Patent Attorneys. We ask our trainees to work towards this qualification and being listed as a qualified European attorney is vital for much of our work. So we only consider applicants who already meet these requirements (or would do so by the time they take the qualifying exams about three years into the job).
For international students who do not have English as their first language, it can also be a challenge to develop the precise use of written and spoken English that is needed to thrive in the profession. However, this can be done and we have had trainees at Mewburn Ellis for whom English is not a first language and who have qualified and gone on to become successful attorneys.
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Is it an advantage to speak more than one language for a career in patents?
Arianna, LMU Munich
It can be an advantage but it is less important than a few years ago.
Up until recently, part of the qualifying exam to become a European patent attorney required candidates to read at least one technical document in another language (French or German for English-speaking candidates). However this requirement has now been dropped so all exams can now be done in English (or French or German for the European exams).
Practically it can be an advantage from a business perspective if you can speak another language to a level sufficient to hold a business meeting or give a presentation. For example it would be very useful to have very good Mandarin, Korean or Japanese language skills given the rising number of clients in those countries.
Basic German language skills can also be useful as a large part of the European Patent Office is based in Munich and it is nice to be able to “get-by” when visiting.
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Are their different routes for those who have a PhD in relation to the level of experience they may have compared to undergraduates?
Kulveer, University of Oxford
No, at least at Mewburn Ellis, the training and route to qualification is the same for trainees straight from a first degree as it is for those with a PhD or postdoctoral experience.
Despite the greater scientific experience of a trainee with a PhD as compared to someone straight from a first degree, the level of experience at being a patent attorney is, of course, the same (essentially none!). Therefore the competence as a patent attorney of a trainee with a PhD is usually not significantly better than one directly from a first degree.
So, all of our new trainees undergo the same training program at Mewburn Ellis and receive the same benefits package (including pay).
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Does Mewburn Ellis provide the opportunity to work abroad? Are there any secondment opportunities?
Kulveer, University of Oxford
Yes – we often offer newly qualified attorneys an opportunity to undertake an extended work placement (typically about three months) at an attorney firm in another country. We have previously sent attorneys to Japan, USA and China.
This opportunity usually arises shortly after qualification as a UK and European attorney (i.e. after around 4 or 5 years in the job). Sometimes our attorneys will also work directly onsite with our clients, which can be based anywhere in Europe or even further afield.
