Over the interval of October, 2007, through March, 2008, job availablility for laterals, patent attorneys/agents already employed in a corporation or law firm, averaged about 363 jobs per month. This number was about 0.9% of the patent bar at the time

This number decreased to 293 jobs per month for laterals over the interval of April through June, 2008. This number is about 81% of jobs available over the 2007-2008 interval. This number was about 0.7% of the patent bar at the time.

This number further dropped to 207 jobs per month over the interval of March through April 2011. This number of jobs was about 57% of the jobs in 2007-2008. This number is about 0.5% of the patent bar.

This blog includes additional data regarding employment trends for patent attorneys and agents.

No Good News in March to May Employment Data for New Patent Bar Registrants

The legal tabloid, Above the Law, is sponsoring a contest where one winner will receive a $10,000 scholarship to law school. Entrants must describe why they want to be a lawyer. For more information, go to:

http://www.abovethelaw.com/

June data for patent attorneys and agents moving from one organization to another shows that a whopping 41.7%, moved from a law firm or corporation to an unaffiliated status. This is a significant increase over the 31.7% figure for May, which was an all time high for Patent Buddy reports.

The percent moving from a law firm to an unaffiliated status showed a small uptick of 21.9%.

Movement from corporations to an unaffiliated status showed a significant increase over numbers earlier this year and 2008. For April 2008, 5.5% of patent attorneys and agents moving, moved to an unaffiliated status. By February 2009, the number increased to 12%. This number increased to an all time high for Patent Buddy data, of 15.2% in June.

The total number of patent attorneys and agents moving increased over May, to 242 people.

Over half of the companies that patent atorneys/agents left for an unaffiliated status were firms smaller than the top 300 patent owners. Companies within the 300 top patent owner group from which patent attorneys and agents left to an unaffiliated status in June include the following:

Mead Westvaco, Boeing, Agilent (2 people left), GE, IBM (2 people left), P&G, Ranbaxy Pharma, Rockwell Automation, Danisco, and Omron Healthcare.

We will have additional information regarding the June data in future Notes and a future Patent Buddy Report.

The number of patent attorneys and agents moving from one organization or to an unaffiliated status continued to drop to 104 people for May, compared to 125 for April. Within this group, 31.7% people moved from a law firm or corporation to an unaffiliated status. This is a new high number for Patent Buddy data monitored.

The March and April data showing lateral movement of patent attorneys and agents identified two interesting trends. One, patent attorneys and agents are staying put. The number of patent attorneys and agents making lateral moves has dropped from the 270-320 person per month range of a year ago to 125-149 person range for March and April, 2009. Two, the percent of patent attorneys and agents moving from a law firm to an unaffiliated status has increased from a range of 7% to 11% a year ago to 21% for each of March and April. The percent in February was 18.5%.

The unaffiliated numbers for new patent attorneys and agents showed some improvement over April and May but are still higher than historic numbers. In June, 54.6% of new patent attorneys and agents, numbering 150, were unaffiliated with a law firm or company.

New patent attorneys and agents affiliated with companies were affiliated with the following: Pfizer, IBM, Aspect Medical, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Cypress Semiconductor, Ovation Pharma, and HP.

In April, 172 new patent attorneys and agents were registered. In May, this number dropped to 148.

In April, 58% of the new patent attorneys and agents were unaffiliated with an organization. In May, this percentage continued to rise, to a new high for Patent Buddy, of 60.8%. The percentage unaffiliated a year ago was in a range of 46-50%.

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A very interesting website, which can be found here,

http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2009/06/the-end-of-an-era-the-bimodal-distribution-for-the-class-of-2008.html

has been monitoring compensation for first year associates, based upon offers they received while in law school. The results are very interesting. Prior to about 2000, compensation did not dispplay a bimodal distribution. However, since then, the disparity has been more and more pronounced. The distribution for 2008 shows the largest disparity.

Patent Buddy does not know whether this distribution exists for newly minted patent attorneys.

The overall percentage of newly registered patent attorneys in May, who were not affiliated with a law firm or corporation or government entity rose to a new high of almost 61%.

New patent attorneys/agents in California fared a bit better. The state had 26 new patent attorneys/agents in May. 46% were affiliated with a law firm or corporation. 54% were unaffiliated with an organization.

Harness Dickey had the largest number of newly registered patent attorneys and agents in May, at 4.

Several large firms, including Finnegan Henderson and Kenyon & Kenyon were absent from the list of organizations hiring newbies in May.

In April, 172 new patent attorneys and agents were registered. In May, this number dropped to 148.

In April, 58% of the new patent attorneys and agents were unaffiliated with an organization. In May, this percentage continued to rise, to a new high for Patent Buddy, of 60.8%. The percentage unaffiliated a year ago was in a range of 46-50%.

New patent attorneys/agents affiliated with a corporation were affiliated with one of the following: Lutron Electronics, Olympus, Gilead, IBM, Pfizer, and Combinix. Other new, affiliated patent attorneys and agents were affiliated with law firms.

A percentage of 31.8% of new patent attorneys and agents are women and 68.2% are men. These percentages are also mirrored by affiliated and unaffiliated patent attorneys and agents.

The following companies hired multiple lateral patent attorneys and agents, documented by the PTO for March and April, 2009:

Two patent attorneys/agents went to LifeTech. Three patent attorneys/agents went to Schering Plough. Two patent attorneys/agents went to Tessera. Three patent attorneys/agents went to HP.

The following companies were left by multiple laterals, documented by the PTO for March and April, 2009:

Three patent attorneys/agents left IBM. Two left Invitrogen. Two left Intel and two left Dow.

The March and April data showing lateral movement of patent attorneys and agents identifies two interesting trends. One, patent attorneys and agents are staying put. The number of patent attorneys and agents making lateral moves has dropped from the 270-320 person per month range of a year ago to 125-149 person range for March and April, 2009. Two, the percent of patent attorneys and agents moving from a law firm to an unaffiliated status has increased from a range of 7% to 11% a year ago to 21% for each of March and April. The percent in February was 18.5%.

A total of 172 new patent attorneys and agents were registered in April. Of this group, 98 (57%) were unaffiliated with an organization. This percentage is the highest identified by Patent Buddy for the unaffiliated new patent attorney/agent group. The percentage for February was 50.8%. The percentage for unaffiliated new patent attorneys and agents a year ago was 46.3%, or 10% lower than April 2009.

64 (37.2%) new patent attorneys/agents were affiliated with law firms and 8 (4.6%) were affiliated with corporations. The remainder were affiliated with government entities.

Corporate affiliations were with Synthes, Arena Pharma, IP Authority, WARF, RIM, Regeneron Pharma, Dow and Pfizer.

For February and March, most of the corporate affiliations were with pharmaceutical and chemical companies.

Patent Buddy extends its Groups and Notes to new patent attorneys and agents to use for marketing purposes. Patent Buddy encourages "newbys" to create new groups, post articles, prepare a You Tube video showcasing your expertise in this really tough employment environment.

A total of 132 new patent attorneys and agents were registered in March. Of this group, 67 (50.8%) were unaffiliated with an organization. 57 (43.2%) were affiliated with law firms. 7 (5.3%) were affiliated with corporations. 1 was affiliated with the USPTO.

The corporations hiring new patent attorneys and agents were Chevron, Thomson Licensing, Eli Lily, Hanson Medical, Merck, Pce Ltd. and Dolby Labs.

The big law firms were again on the list of hiring organizations, after several months of being absent. The firms included Finnegan Henderson, with 3 new hires.

Here is how the March statistics compare with previous months:

From October, 2007, through March, 2008, Patent Buddy identified 1010 new patent agent/attorney registrants. Of this group, 420, or 41.6% of the total were unaffiliated with an organization. Fifty percent of the total were affiliated with law firms and 6.8% were affiliated with corps.

April through June of 2008 had 525 new registrants to the patent bar. Of these, 41.9% were affiliated with law firms, 8.8 percent were affiliated with corps and 46.3% were unaffiliated.

The percent of unaffiliated new registrants jumped to 51.8%. The total number of new registrants for this two month period was 380. For those who were affiliated with an organization, 42.3% were affiliated with law firms and 5.8% were affiliated with corporations.

Below is data by month, from April, 2008, through November, 2008:

Date Total New Unaffiliated Law Firm April 144 51 (35.4) 77 (53.5)

May 195 94 (48.2) (44.1)

June 185 94(50.8) 75 (40.5)

July 227 106 (46.6) 106 (46.7)

August 153 59 (38.5%) 80 (52.3)

September 184 104 (56.5%) 66 (35.9)

October 238 127 (53.3) 100 (42.0)

November 142 70 (49.3) 61 (42.9)

December

January

February 131 56(42.7%) 65(48)

March 132 67(50.8%) 57(43)

Above the law reported today that Fish & Richardson has notified incoming first year associates that 1/3 will start in the fall of 2009, 1/3 will start in 2010 and the start date for the remaining date has not been set. More on this matter can be found at:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/fish_richardson_puts_one-third.php?show=comments#comments

Patent Buddy data shows that the number of patent attorneys and agents at Pfizer has decreased from 123 in 2006 to 81 in 2009, so far. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Above the Law Reports:

"Pfizer]'s four-year "tour de layoffs" has cost the company $7B, according to an SEC filing. To date, PFE has spent $5.3B for employee-termination costs, including severance payments, pensions and post-retirement benefits, as well as costs associated with write-downs on properties, plants and equipment. PFE has axed 40,000 (yeah, 40,000) employees over the last five years, with 1,650 positions gone in Q1. The damage is not done either. PFE says that once the WYE merger is done, another 19,000 will get the axe with 8,000 coming from PFE and the rest from WYE. PFE expects the merger and restructuring will cost between $6-8B, but will reduce annual costs by $4B starting in 2012."

Above the Law is reporting an economic layoff by Fish & Richardson. Management has stated:

"The global recession has profoundly impacted many businesses. Continuing to face unprecedented levels of economic uncertainty in the marketplace, the firm has decided to make workforce adjustments that will ensure our continued strength during these turbulent times. Specifically, we have reduced our legal staff by 35 and our support staff by 85 across our U.S. offices."

More information can be found at: http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/fish_richardson_layoffs_120.php

1. Illinois has 12 new registrants in February. only 3 of which were unaffiliated with an organization. Nine were affiliated with a law firm and none were affiliated with a corporation.

2. Half of the new registrants in Texas in February were unaffiliated. This is in line with the national average.

3. Michigan had only one new registrant in February.

Patent Buddy encourages patent attorneys and agents who have registered on Patent Buddy to add notes about themselves and their practices. Please check out the "Patent" feature. This feature allows practitioners to list patents that they have worked on in some way and use the list to showcase their experience. Also, practitioners should feel free to add links to articles, seminars, Power Point presentations they have prepared. Additionally, practitioners can add links to any You Tube presentations that showcase their experience or firm or both.

Over the months of April-June, 2008, 11-15 people became registered patent attorneys and agents in New York. This number dropped to 7 in Feb., 2008. Of these 7, two were unaffiliated.

The national rate of unaffiliated patent agents and lawyers has been in a range of 45% to 55% for the past year and a half. Minnesota has consistently "bucked the trend," in that the percent of unaffiliated is well under 50%. For Feb, 2008, the percent was 25%.

Minnesota may be a state where patent attorneys and agentsmove once they have employment. They do not stay if there is no work.

California has more patent attorneys and agents than any other state, by far. No other state even comes close. New registrants in CA in February numbered 33. This number is within a range of new registrants over the months of April-June 2008. The percent unaffiliated at the time of registration, 45% for Feb., is also within the range of unaffiliated over April-June 2008 of 47%.

40% of the new registrants in CA were affiliated with law firms which is the same percent as April-June.

This is not directly related to Employment Trends but Patent Buddy would like to get some feedback from the patent community regarding who should be the next commissioner. If you have some free time, go to the link below and vote:

http://www.micropoll.com/akira/mpview/586497-163679

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043003115.html

A very good article can be found at:

http://lawandmore.typepad.com/law_and_more/2009/04/2012-in-2009-for-biglaw-no-ordinary-downturn.html

An interesting discussion of the insanity of BigLaw can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BufcBAlyU04

Today is a very tragic day for the legal community. A lawyers' lawyer took his own life under very, very sad circumstances. For more information, check out the Above the Law website.

Presented below is a list of Chem/Pharma/Biotech companies hiring one or more patent attorneys or agents reported to the USPTO Jan. and Feb. of 2009:

Chem/Pharma/Biotech:

Wyeth

P&G (3)

O(2) Micro

Exxon

Alcon

SC Johnson

Coloplast

Synta Pharma

National Oilwell

Chevron

Alnylan Pharma

Cargill

Halozyme Therapeutics

Immunomedics

Biomerleux

Novartis (3)

Forest Labs (2)

Human Genome Sci

Liptis Pharma

Vertex Pharma

Focet Biotech

JSL Biopharma

Biogen

Avila Therapeutics

Iogen

KV Pharma

Theracrine

Peptimune

Arca Biopharma

Baxter (2)

Dupont

Syngenta

Bayer

The departure of patent attorneys and agents from law firms has received some scrutiny in the past few months. Not much as been reported regarding the departurre of patent attorneys/agents from companies, however.

Patent Buddy has reviewed USPTO data and has identified patent attorneys and agents that have departed from companies to an unaffiliated status. Patent Buddy does not know whether the departures were voluntary or were lay-offs and proffers no opinon on this issue.

The USPTO data shows an increase in numbers from 27 for October and November of 2008 to 36 for January and February of 2009. 59.3% of the group that departed during Oct./Nov. left chemical and pharmaceutical companies. This percent dropped to 44.4% for Jan./Feb. Nobody left a biotech company over Oct./Nov. but 11.4% of those leaving left biotechnology companies during Jan./Feb.

26% of patent attorneys leaving corporations during Oct./Nov. left electrical technology companies. This percent increased to 38.9% for Jan./Feb.

Only one company, Merck, had more than one patent attorney/agent depart during Oct./Nov. The following companies had more than one patent attorney/agent depart during Jan./Feb.: Genzyme, Pfizer,Walker Digital, and IBM.

Judge Richard Posner writes a book, entitled, "A Failure of Capitalism."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/judge-richard-posner-disc_n_188950.html

On April 13, Commissioner Doll sent a memo to PTO staff that included the following information:

"we are seeing a decline in the collection of a number of different patent fees--including filing, maintenance, and requests for extensions of time. If these collections continue at their current rates through the end of FY09, we will end the year collecting roughly $100 million below what we projected.

• Unfortunately, what we have heard from some international offices as well as U.S. filers is that we should expect much more significant drop-offs in filings and fee collections."

More on the memo can be found here:http://www.patenthawk.com/blog/2009/04/hunkering_down.html#more

Over the past couple of weeks, several general practice firms have announced pay cuts for their associates. The firms have included Robinson & Cole, -$20,000; McKenna Aldrige reduced comp for incoming first years from $145,000 to $125,000; Greenberg Traurig cut associate comp by 10%; and Womble Carlyle reduced comp for associates and paralegals by 10%. More on the Womble cuts can be found here: http://abovethelaw.com/Womble%20memo%20excerpt%204.JPG .

The data for February, 2009, shows that the largest number of new patent attorneys and patent agents reside in California. However, over half of these people are not affiliated with an organization. Illinois ranks second, after California, with new patent attorneys and agents that number about 1/3 the number of California. The number of people who are unaffiliated in this group is only about 1/4 of the total group. Other states have smaller numbers.

Check out Dennis Crouch's Patently O blog today at:

http://www.patentlyo.com/ .

Dennis has obtained some very interesting data from the PTO on new patent application filings, as well as RCE's and Continuation filing. New filings have decreased to 2004 levels. Continuation filings are down about 20%. RCE's have increased.

Check out the Supeep Court:

http://www.abovethelaw.com/

Last year at this time, 5.5% of patent attorneys and agents changing organizations moved from a corporation to an unaffiliated status. For February 2009, almost 12% of patent attorneys/agents moving, moved to an unaffiliated status.

Last year, 11% of patent attorneys and agents changing organizations moved from a law firm to an unaffiliated status. For February 2009, this percentage jumped to 18.5%.

Patent Buddy cannot determine how many of the attorneys and agents moving to an unaffiliated status were laid off, compared to those voluntarily quitting. However, the significant increase in these percentages does appear to indicate that some lay-offs have occurred.

Patent Buddy has been tracking several metrics regarding new registrants to the patent bar. One metric is whether the registrant identifies an organization, such as a law firm or a corporation, as his/her place of employment. The percent of new registrants not associated with an organization has crept up a bit over the past year and a half but is holding in a range of about 45% to 50% of the total new registrants, by month.

Patent Buddy is not certain whether this is an encouraging metric or whether it is a lagging indicator. One other observation of note is that the employers of the new registrants are increasingly the small patent boutique firms, rather than Biglaw or Bigtique.

Law.com Reported Lay-offs at Townsend on Wed. The article can be found here:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429771602

The Article reported that Townsend let 16 attorneys and 45 staff go. Townsend reported a drop in both litigation and prep/pros.

Law firms generally are confronted with client demands for discounts. The pressure for price reductions forces firms to look at all their costs, including compensation. The NYT had an interesting editorial on the subject earlier this week:

Patent firms, including prep/pros firms are also experiencing these pressures. There is a general perception that prep/pros has moved from the big GP's and big boutiques to smaller firms. If this movement is indeed occurring, what is the impact on compensation? Any thoughts?

Law firms generally are confronted with client demands for discounts. The pressure for price reductions forces firms to look at all their costs, including compensation. The NYT had an interesting editorial on the subject earlier this week:

Patent firms, including prep/pros firms are also experiencing these pressures. There is a general perception that prep/pros has moved from the big GP's and big boutiques to smaller firms. If this movement is indeed occurring, what is the impact on compensation? Any thoughts?