Working at the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), a patent examiner decides whether applications for patents can be granted.
See also our entries about trade mark examiners and formalities examiners.
Last Updated: November 1, 2024
Working at the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), a patent examiner decides whether an application for a patent can be granted. To do this they need to hunt through databases to check for “prior art” (evidence that somebody else came up with the same idea first) and work out whether the application describes a genuinely new and “inventive” (ie not obvious) concept. If so, they must check that it meets the other legal requirements for being awarded a patent.
Experienced examiners also manage and train their more junior colleagues and sometimes you might get involved in project works with companies or even conduct formal hearings if examiner decisions are challenged.
Patent examiners work at the Intellectual Property Office, which is the government department that officially recognises patents and other intellectual property in the UK.
A good technical understanding is essential in order to be able to analyse patents, patent applications and “prior art” quickly. You’ll also need strong communication skills, so you can present your arguments – both technical and legal – to different audiences who may not have the same technical understanding as you.
To apply, you’ll have to have a degree in a science, technology or engineering subject or in maths – and you’ll have to get a good grade too. Your degree subject can be quite specialised (so long as it’s a field where lots of people want patents).
When you start the job, you spend the first couple of months doing a classroom-based training programme. After that, the training is on the job, with one-to-one supervision from an experienced examiner. For the first two years, the ongoing programme of training continues, and even after that you need to keep improving your skills and staying up to date with patent law and technical developments. The career path to becoming a senior patent examiner is clearly structured and involves regular legal, technical and wider skills training.
Helping people get their ideas protected gives quite a buzz and it involves being at the cutting edge of developments in your field.
When a new patent application lands on your desk, you need to get your head around it fast, understanding it well enough to judge its innovation level and reviewing relevant scientific literature. That would be challenge enough, but the technology and law are constantly changing, so even when you’re trained, you can’t stop learning and adapting.
It can sometimes be hard delivering bad news to an applicant about whether, and with what scope, their patent can be granted – especially if they disagree with you!
The Civil Service Jobs website lists vacancies as they crop up, but the IPO also runs an annual recruitment cycle which starts in early September: check the IPO website for details.