Getting Ahead in IP Law
David Shore (’19), Becky Simmons (’18), and Qian Ding (LLM’17) share how working as patent agents has impacted their BU Law education.
Professionals with science backgrounds and experience in patent work are continuously looking to expand their knowledge of intellectual property law, often with the help of Boston University School of Law’s Intellectual Property Law Program. The School is home to a number of students who, having already passed the US Patent & Trademark bar, work their way through law school as patent agents. The IP law program offers these students the opportunity to explore new areas of IP law, advance their careers, and litigate patent cases after they pass a state bar exam.
The Intellectual Property Concentration brings together three core areas—patent, copyright, and trademark. The highly ranked program benefits from BU Law’s teaching and curricular strengths in intellectual property and matches these strengths against the significant need in Boston for intellectual property law specialists. The Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property & Cyberlaw Program, consisting of two clinics launched in partnership with MIT, provides students of both institutions with opportunities to work together on business, intellectual property, and legal compliance issues.
David Shore (’19), Becky Simmons (’18), and Qian Ding (LLM’17) share their experiences as patent agents, their motivations for coming to law school, and how they expect their BU Law education will benefit their careers.
David Shore (’19), Patent Agent, Choate Hall & Stewart
For David Shore, laboratory research in biotech and genetics is like being immersed in a forest where there are multiple directions to take and the possibilities are endless. But the study of law, he says, is more like being in a maze.
“Even though I am constrained by the walls of a maze, there is something fascinating about it,” Shore says. “There’s an art to getting through and mastering it.”
Shore, a patent agent with Choate Hall & Stewart LLP, is studying intellectual property at Boston University School of Law. At Choate, Shore works with clients to protect their innovative ideas. His academic background in biotech and genetics provides him with extensive scientific knowledge, but Shore says coming to BU Law and working at Choate have opened him up to an atmosphere where others are just as curious and passionate about the law as he is.
“I came to BU because I wanted the full experience,” Shore says. “I wanted to be immersed with students who are grappling the same questions of law. I wanted to learn from and with people who are passionate—I think BU is a fantastic place for that.”
Shore’s interest in IP law stems from his love of writing. With the law, he is able to combine that love with his science background, as he helps clients develop patents for cutting-edge advancements in the biomedical field.
“In patent law, you go from knowing very little about a specific area of science or having never faced a particular legal question before to, in a very small period of time, being able to tackle that question coherently and persuasively,” Shore says. “Putting together the story, constructing clear language, making points, and proceeding through logical paths has always been something I’ve enjoyed.”
Becky Simmons, PhD (’18), Patent Agent, Hamilton Brook Smith & Reynolds
When Becky Simmons, a patent agent at Hamilton Brook Smith & Reynolds PC, realized that becoming a lab scientist wasn’t the right path for her, it opened up a lane to explore IP law. The field has allowed her to stay at the forefront of her first love: chemistry.
“You’re always working on the cutting-edge of technology in IP law,” Simmons says. “You’re never working in just one tiny niche, since you’re working on a lot of different cases at the same time. You also still get to interact with inventors and collaborate with them on what they’re doing, and so you don’t feel like you’re totally divorced from your first love, which for me was chemistry.”
For Simmons, earning a degree at BU Law is the next step to continue making a change in the patent world.
“If you go the patent agent track, you can never become a partner in the firm,” she says. “You reach a maximum level after which you can’t progress any higher. The BU Law degree will qualify me to litigate patent cases, which I couldn’t do as a patent agent.”
Simmons says studying at BU Law has given her a more complete picture of IP law, and allowed her to dive into areas that interest her. “One of the areas I really enjoy is trademark law,” Simmons says. “It’s an area that I want to become proficient in so that I can do it in my practice. Being given the appropriate classes at BU Law is one way in which I have found BU Law’s faculty to have been very helpful.”
As a working student and mother, Simmons appreciates the flexibility of the program, noting that faculty have been helpful in allowing her to adjust her schedule. “They’ve been extremely supportive and accommodating of my work commitments as well as family commitments in terms of scheduling of classes and accommodations that were needed for certain programming,” she says.
Qian Ding (LLM in Intellectual Property Law ’17)
Qian Ding studied mechanical engineering and Japanese at Dalian University of Technology in China and is now a student in BU Law’s LLM in IP Law Program. Her experience as a patent agent at King & Wood law firm in China and Daimler AG allowed her to understand the relationship between technology and the law.
“The combination of law and technology is just magical,” Ding says. “In each case, I have to apply the law to different technology and I always think about the novel solutions of patent protection in the given frame of the patent law. The work as a patent agent is challenging, but a lot of fun. Sometime I felt I did a great job because I helped my clients protect their cutting-edged technology through patent.”
Ding, who is fluent in Mandarin, English, and Japanese, and her language skills have allowed her to work with patent clients from several different countries, from America to Japan. She says working as a patent agent put her at the forefront of technology’s advancements.
“It was a big advantage to study foreign languages because in patent law, you read a lot of foreign patents,” Ding says. “Every day I was able to read patents that were interesting. I was motivated because every day I dealt with very novel and advanced technology from around the world.”
Ding says studying at BU Law has given her the opportunity to have a well-rounded education in which she can learn about multiple facets of IP law.
“My patent agent background and my mechanical engineering education can help me to understand a lot of cases,” Ding says. “I want to be a lawyer who is not limited to only patent law, but one who also masters trademark, copyright, and competition law.”