INTERVIEW

How did you learn about the Patent Attorney profession and what inspired you to become a (European) Patent Attorney?

Well, our practice is a family business, founded by my mother, such as most in similar companies in Slovakia are, so I have been exposed to the profession for as long as I can remember. I really started to understand what is the profession about 30 years ago, however I have not been involved directly in the profession before about 15 years ago. IP is my second career so until then I was active in the IT, working for a major SW vendor in various senior positions, and later as a business consultant. It's been only around 2008 when my family asked me to take an active role and get directly involved. By that time the IT business undergone dramatic changes caused by globalization and technology progress and I have lost my motivation to continue working in this segment. Getting directly involved in IP and further build on the achievements of my family seemed to be a good move and a major challenge.

Most people know that Patent Attorneys help clients obtain a patent. However, what other tasks are you responsible for? 

I see the profession rather as being a strategic consultant, who’s task is to help turn the inventions into strategic assets. Hence obtaining a patent is only one part of the job. A major part of the profession is helping the clients to focus the innovation process, so it results into a strategic business advantage and resources directed into innovation are spend where they generate largest value. On the other hand, unfortunately in the small countries and economies such as Slovakia with its extremely low ranking in the Global Innovation Index, very low understanding of the IP concepts, ineffective legal system and suboptimal IP prosecution processes, a large part of the job is educating the clients about the absolute IP basics, such as reasons to protect IP and the rights related to, continuous work in the public policy space, so the legal system and its IP related processes become more effective as well as active participation in the innovation ecosystem by working not only with legislators and public education institutions, but also with investors, startup communities and innovation hubs, so means are created to capture the ideas and support them during the whole innovation cycle leading to successful commercialization. Without such efforts no valuable IP can be generated and there would not be a real need for prosecuting the patent applications by end of the day.

If you had to split your role into science, law, and business, what is the proportion of each?

Considering the above said, I would rather split my role in 25% of work on IP prosecution related tasks, including prior art research, 25% in acquiring and educating clients on IP basics and IP consulting, 25% of public-policy related work and work in the innovation ecosystem, which includes tasks related to various organizations I have an active role, such as the Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys, AIPPI, ECTA and now also EPI, due to my roles in various committees, and finally about 25% related to other aspects of our practice daily operations and mentoring my colleagues.

What does the team structure at your workplace look like?

Our practice is quite small, like other boutique IP companies. We do have 4 patent attorneys, 3 of which are European patent attorneys, 2 paralegals and 1 person in operations support. There are 2 contractors on top, one of them works in patent prosecution. We outsource most non-core support processes, incl. accounting. Despite the size we are probably the largest specialized patent practice in Slovakia. One of the attorneys does fully specialize in trademarks and IP rights enforcement (we don’t do court litigations but are very active in anti-counterfeiting). The other attorneys are specialized by SJM. We have implemented IT means which do allow us working fully remotely, if needed, and do not require much IT support.

What does your average workday look like?

I do get up pretty early and before leaving for office, I typically check the most urgent emails, which have been received during the night, so I get an overview and upon arriving to the office at about 8.30 we sync with the rest of the team about the priorities for the day or coming deadlines. Then I typically spend the time until noon responding to client’s inquiries or consult with them work on running projects on line or an in person meeting. In the afternoon, I typically check with my colleagues where the need my involvement or input, and we have at least one session, where we discuss a particular case, our understanding of a client’s invention, search strategy or a draft of a document. After that I spend time on projects, where I am in charge, doing a search, drafting an application or office action response. Before leaving for home, I typically need to perform some tasks related to operations (such as payments approvals or other financial issues) and take some homework, such as documents to read for an upcoming project or clients meeting, eventually any materials I have to prepare for the policy activities mentioned. I try to study or draft them later in the evening at home.

What would a dream workday as a (European) Patent Attorney look like for you?

Well, I am quite happy with my workday. If there is something to change, I would be grateful if I would not have to spend so much time educating clients about the very IP basics, or helping them to get funding for their  IP matters, and instead do services with higher value add. I believe an European patent attorney in a large IP practice in Western Europe does concentrate much more in the prosecution or litigation work so their dream workday might look different, but my vision of the profession includes quite a large spectrum of tasks to cover, and many of them can leverage my background in business consulting, which is a good thing, I hope.

What is the most exciting aspect of being a (European) Patent Attorney for you?

As explained, I have a past career working in the SW field, especially in analytical tools space and statistics. It is exciting to see statistics and AI becoming a major part of most of the inventions nowadays, but what I like in particular, very powerful AI tools started to appear in the IP intelligence space. We are lucky having almost always the opportunity testing them out, sometimes even before they are released, and only few of the IP folks do know about, and we are trying to use those in our daily work. Such tools have allowed us for example completely insource the patentability and state of art searches, because we can generate high quality results so quickly, that it makes no more sense outsourcing those to external search companies. This has a dramatic effect on the quality and speed of our prosecution work, and has moreover a positive effect on our bottom line. That’s what I like most on the job, the fact that I can leverage know how and knowledge gathered elsewhere for the benefit of the daily work and services we offer to our clients.

What are your least favourite tasks?

I think I have already mentioned that I do not like the work I have to do in basic education of the clients about IP, in particular. It might have a positive aspect of building a trusted relation with the client, but when you find yourself talking about the very same topic using almost the very same words daily, it becomes frustrating. I can probably remember 2 new clients over the 15 years I am actively working in IP where I could skip this part. Actually, the most frustrating is not the fact you have to do it, but the fact you do not see the situation changing, despite all the efforts you put in talking to clients, at events or to the innovation ecosystem players. There is a need to change what should taught about the IP at least at universities in this country at least, as it is completely unacceptable to talk to senior executives which do not have any clue about the role of IP in business or even to lawyers who typically do know nothing about IP or its business impact with except of what relates copyright.

Does your job allow you to have time for your hobbies?

Well I have quite a few hobbies, such as motorcycle riding, photography or travelling, but partly because of my 5 year-old daughter and the need to keep at least some life work balance, I have had to pass on them during the last couple of years, the only exception being my audiophile passion as the job allows me to listen to music during I actually work, like draft or read documents. It helps me even to concentrate better as for me, it wipes out any external noise or other disturbing factors. So, my office and even our meeting room is packed with audiophile gear and it sometimes leads to nice small talks with visitors, which help to build relations.

If you could start your career over, would you change anything?

I would certainly not pass on my original career before IP, as this allowed me to see many things differently. I also think, the time I got to IP was about the right time for me. So if I had to change something, I would probably be more pushy in changing the way how our practice operates, as it took me quite some time before convincing everyone involved to change the processes and systems, so to prepare to the changes going on in IP globally. I would like to be where we are now 3 years ago, which would have allowed us taking more of the opportunities the changes in IP bring to those prepared.

If the Patent Attorney profession suddenly disappeared tomorrow, what else would you do?

I do not believe the profession will disappear. But if I had to stop my work as patent attorney tomorrow, I would certainly continue in a job or function, closely related to innovations, such I was always doing something closely linked to.

What advice would you give someone that wants to become a European Patent Attorney?

The candidates should understand the EQE in the past format did actually very little to prepare themselves for what the profession is, or better used to be about. So passing the EQE main exam in one shot says very little about the readiness for the job. The new format will perhaps prepare them better for the job as now. As a matter of fact, the very early D papers have been more suitable to prepare them for what the job should or will be in the future, I think. So, if they have had no opportunity to gather their know how and skills needed in the future elsewhere, they should try to find a mentor who helps them to gather those, so they are properly prepared for what the profession will involve into.

What do you think about the future outlook of our profession?

As explained, I believe the profession is changing quite dramatically, such as the whole IP world around us in changing. It shifts from the operational and tactical tasks to the more strategic tasks with more substantial business impact. I just hope there will be enough crazy people in the profession, to drive the change to what is the profession about because, as Steve Jobs said in the famous Apple commercial, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.