Intellectual Property Law as an emerging and lucrative branch of legal practice

The importance of intellectual property can never be stressed enough. The creation, protection and management of intellectual property have been a concern for humanity throughout the ages. Presence of intellectual property laws can be found as far back as the medieval period.

The protection offered to intellectual property is critical to foster and encourage innovation. When creators of intellectual property are rewarded monetarily, it encourages others to come up with innovative creations; because for any intellectual work to be offered protection under law it has to be unique and novel.

Intellectual property law practice?

According to the WIPO, in 2013, the international patent applications across 124 countries, under the Patent Cooperation Treaty surpassed the 200,000 mark. Around 187,053 trademark applications were filed in 2012 in India alone. At the same time United States had 820,662 applications and 354,152 applications were filed in the United Kingdom; the numbers keep on rising every year.

The number of job openings related to IP practice is increasing each day. Companies are on the lookout for IP attorneys, IP contract/license managers and drafting professionals, patent agents, researchers. Also, IP litigation is an area of lucrative practice ensured by the establishment of domestic IP tribunals across different countries like India, United Kingdom, USA, etc. If you investigate intellectual property openings on any job search portal online, you will realise that it is an immensely popular practice area in terms of where the majority of open positions are.

While there are many political, sociological and other reasons given for the present dominance of contemporary leaders in the world economy, in all respects a great deal of the recent growth within the internal economies of leading nations has been fuelled by intellectual property related developments. In almost all sectors, including technology, which grew in the beginning of the 21st century, intellectual property played a crucial role in the growth.

Now, in order to comprehend the importance of intellectual property, the role of IP lawyers and professionals within any sector and why intellectual property has such an important impact on any economy it is worthwhile to reviewing generally the history of growth across the world economy. The account given below is simplistic; however, it does demonstrate the point we are seeking to make.

Firstly, a great deal of the initial economic growth in most countries was proportional to the amount of natural resources and the geographical size and location. During earlier periods, wealth was created by simply exploiting natural resources. A great deal of wealth and development occurred from things like beaver pelts, gold, and timber, for example.

Secondly, during the 19th century, economic growth was fuelled by the mechanization and consequently, the industrialisation of processes to exploit our country's natural resources. The introduction of machines to exploit a country's natural resources was fundamental to its development.

Thirdly, over the past century, manufacturing industries were the main wealth creators. At this point in time, intellectual property began to assume a role of some importance. Nevertheless, intellectual property was for the most part considered more of a derivative of the large manufacturing industries such as the car, steel and consumer products industries which fuelled the development of countries like the United States.

Finally, in the late 20th Century and into the 21st, a new level of wealth creation has been occurring. In the present economic season, the new industrial tycoons are not primarily in the steel and "traditional" industries. Today, valuation of companies is based more on the value of intellectual property than on the value of "harder assets" such as inventory, plants and equipment. The real growth has been in the media, telecommunications, technology, pharmaceutical and other related industries. Since the enterprises in these fields have committed enormous resources for innovations and the products that accompany them, they are also more than willing to commit enormous resources to protect their intellectual property.

Accordingly, while intellectual property was once not economically something of great importance, today it is fundamental to the success of any developed and developing economy.

In fact, the growth in intellectual property related work has been so profound and immense that courts are often confused as to how to deal with many of the issues brought before them. This is because the high-tech world moves much faster than the judicial system, leaving judges to confront issues that did not exist a few years ago. Recent cases involving peer-to-peer services, video streaming and file sharing have raised new questions about how existing copyright and intellectual property rights will deal with the Internet.

Why Patent lawyers are in so much demand?

Patent law is without a doubt one of the most active areas for any type of recruiting in the job market. No noticeable slowdown in patent recruiting has been reported despite the slowdown in the world economy that started in late 2000. As most economies continue technology-oriented growth, the need for patent attorneys will follow. There are several reasons patent attorneys are in such demand:

Firstly, one of the primary reasons that the need for patent attorneys is so strong is that there are very few of them. Over the past five years, the percentage of practicing patent attorneys has not increased proportionally to all the attorneys practicing law.

Secondly, in order to become a patent attorney in countries like the United States or a patent agent in countries like India it is not enough just to take a law degree and pass the bar exam. In addition, an attorney/agent must also pass the exam conducted by the Federal Patent and Trademark Office.

Thirdly, in order to even sit for such exams, most jurisdictions mandate that an applicant possess prior scientific or technical level training at the Bachelor's degree level in a science or engineering field or must have completed significant college credits in one of these fields.

Fourthly, assuming the potential patent attorney even has the requisite training to qualify to take the patent exam, they must also pass it, and the pass rate for the patent exam is much lower than for most bar exams.

Fifthly, the demand for patent attorneys is compounded by the fact that the need for patents has continually increased exponentially. The statistics furnished by the World Intellectual Property Organisation shows that the number of patent applications per year across different jurisdictions has consistently been on the increase with negligible exceptions.

Finally, it is also important to note that attorneys with technical expertise in certain fields are far more likely to obtain employment as patent attorneys than other types of patent attorneys. In terms of demand, the greatest demand is for attorneys with backgrounds in electrical engineering or computer science. There is also a strong demand for attorneys with biotechnology, biochemistry or organic chemistry backgrounds.

Learning Intellectual Property law along with your practice is now more easier with the Certified Intellectual Property Law Analyst (CIPLA) Course .

The CIPLA programme is designed to equip professionals and students from different disciplines on intellectual property. The programme has been developed by experts in the field and incorporates an international and comparative law syllabus in order to cater to the increase in transnational business ventures.

Any professional would testify to the fact that colleges do not equip you for professional practice. Studying for the CIPLA programme ensures that you gain the education and skills to become an IP professional in varied roles. Professionals already engaged in an IP occupation would find the CIPLA programme an avenue to enhance his/her current role.

Click here to know more about the course.