Patent engineer
The term patent engineer is not a protected professional title and is used inconsistently in business practice. Based on the history, those employees of a company with a university degree in engineering or natural sciences who deal with the issues of industrial property rights are called patent engineers.
The term patent officer is a job title under which patent assessors , patent engineers as well as employees who are experienced in the field of industrial property protection without a degree in engineering or natural science can be classified.
Patent engineers are only allowed to advise in the field of industrial property rights within their company. Advising third parties would be a violation of the Legal Services Act, which only allows licensed patent attorneys to do this.
Professional activities
As an engineer or scientist trained specialist with specific additional qualifications, the patent engineer in the company is primarily responsible for the following tasks and problems in the context of corporate patent systems:
- Support and advice to the specialist departments on patent law issues
- Carrying out patent research
- Examination of new technical developments for protection capability and worthiness
- Formulating patent applications and obtaining patents
- Management of the patent portfolio
- Clarification of property rights issues
- Defense of own and monitoring of third party property rights
- Assumption of the mediator role between the management, the specialist departments and external patent attorneys in matters of inventions and patents
- Support of innovation management
- Participation in the issuing of licenses to own property rights or in the acquisition of licenses for third-party property rights
education
The training or further education to become a patent engineer or patent consultant takes place via special (distance) study programs or courses at universities, which include the topic of "industrial property protection" as a core element. In this way, the future patent engineer or consultant can acquire the necessary specialist knowledge in patent, utility model, design, trademark and copyright law .
The following courses exist:
The job title for the engineer is after his additional training "(Diplom-) Patentingenieur"; the natural scientist (physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, etc.) calls himself a "patent officer" (this results from the definition of an engineer under national law). Colloquially, he is sometimes referred to as an " inventor consultant ".
The two-semester (correspondence) course "Intellectual Property Law" is offered by IP for IP GmbH (Weinheim) in cooperation with the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. The part-time further training to become a “patent engineer” (with a previous engineering degree) or “patent consultant” concludes with a university certificate. For information see web links.
"Patent Engineering" is offered as a full-time, face-to-face course in Germany at the East Bavarian Technical University of Amberg-Weiden. By the summer semester 2011 with the degree “Dipl.-Ing. (FH) für Patentingenieurwesen "(after 8 semesters) and since the winter semester 2011/2012 with the European unified academic degree" Bachelor of Engineering for Patent Engineering "(after 7 semesters).
The AKAD University from Stuttgart has been offering the 9-month distance learning course "Patent Engineering / Management" since January 2015. It is connected with a university certificate. This university certificate can be credited towards the AKAD course "Technical Management - Master of Science", which is accredited by ZEvA and approved by the State Central Agency for Distance Learning (ZFU).
The Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin offers the advanced one-semester distance learning course “Patent Law for Engineers and Scientists / Intellectual Property”. It is concluded with a certificate.
The PATON | State Patent Center Thuringia of the TU Ilmenau has been offering part-time training as a patent engineer / patent manager or patent researcher as part of the PATON academy since the summer semester 2011 . The advanced training concludes with a university certificate after attending at least 15 seminars within 2 years and passing an examination.
The Technical University of Berlin has been offering the master's degree in patent engineering since the 2016/2017 winter semester.
The Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences in Jena has been offering the part-time master’s degree in “Patent Engineering (M.Eng.)” Since the 2015/2016 winter semester and is running it in cooperation with JenALL e. V., the advanced training academy of the Friedrich Schiller University and the Ernst Abbe University of Jena.
Individual evidence
- ↑ OTH Amberg-Weiden - Patent Engineering Course Website of the Patent Engineering course
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ PATON State Patent Center Thuringia: Patent Engineer / Patent Manager. Retrieved February 7, 2017 .
- ^ Center for Intellectual Property - TU Berlin »Master's degree in patent engineering. Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
- ↑ JenALL eV - EAH Jena »Master's degree in" Patent Engineering (M.Eng.) ". Retrieved January 5, 2018 .
