2009 Patent Law Interview Program: Law School Information
The Loyola Patent Law Interview Program is a two-day interview program held in Chicago each summer that brings together patent law employers and law students from across the country to interview for summer associate positions and post-graduate employment. The 2009 Patent Law Interview Program will be held on Thursday, July 30 & Friday, July 31 at the Embassy Suites Chicago - Downtown/Lakefront at 511 North Columbus Drive in Downtown Chicago.
Click here for a list of employers that participated in last year's program.
Click here for a list of law schools that are registered for this year's program.
Each year roughly 1,500 law students register for the program, submit their resumes, and bid on interviews with the nation-wide employers that interest them. The program is entirely employer selected - which means that participating employers review the resumes submitted to them and choose the law students they are interested in interviewing at the program. Roughly half of the students registered for the program are selected for interviews each year.
Questions about Patent Bar Eligibility?
Consult the USPTO's General Requirement Bulletin.
HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS FOR STUDENTS
FEES STUDENT REGISTRATION
LAW SCHOOL REGISTRATION & STUDENT VERIFICATION
STUDENT ELIGIBILITY HOTEL & TRAVEL INFORMATION
LAW SCHOOL/STUDENT IMPORTANT DATES
CONTACT INFORMATION
2009 EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE TO STUDENTS
HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS FOR STUDENTS
For students, participation in the program takes place in three phases:
STEP 1:
First, students register for the program online. Each student's law school then verifies the student's graduation date and status as a student in good standing. Once the verification is complete, all qualified students are given a Patent Symplicity account for bidding on interviews at the Patent Law Interview Program.
STEP 2:
Once registered students have access to the Patent Symplicity site, they upload their resume and bid on the participating employers in which they are interested. The employers review the resumes submitted to them and select the students they wish to interview and alternate students to be scheduled in the event of cancellations or no-shows. Once the employers have selected the students they wish to interview, Symplicity generates interview schedules, which will be available on Symplicity on June 16. After a brief cancellation period, Symplicity will schedule students chosen by the employers as alternates into any interview slots opened up as the result of cancellations. Final interview schedules will be available on Symplicity on June 24.
STEP 3:
Students who have been selected for interviews must register on-site at the interview hotel (Embassy Suites Chicago - Downtown/Lakefront) either the evening before their interview (4:00 pm - 7:00 pm) or the morning of their interviews (7:30 am - 8:30 am). The on-site registration requirement is MANDATORY and we will make no exceptions.
Students need only register once on-site to be considered registered for interviews on both days. Students who have not registered by 8:30 am on Thursday, July 30 will have all of their Thursday slots given to alternates; students who still have not registered by 8:30 am on Friday, July 31 will have all of their Friday interview slots given to alternates.
Alternate scheduling will take place in the registration room at 8:30 am each day, and all students selected as alternates who are interested in being scheduled for empty interview slots resulting from no-shows must be present in the registration room at that time.
The law student registration fee is $35 and is non-refundable. There is no fee for law schools to register for the Patent Law Interview Program. Instead, we require that every registering school designate a Patent Program Liaison to communicate with, and educate your students about, the program. We will send detailed emails and answers to frequently asked questions to the Patent Program Liaisons throughout the year leading up to the program at the end of July. We will refer all student questions to the Patent Program Liaisons, and we ask that you only pass questions on to us that you are unable to answer from the materials we've provided. We will also send the Patent Program Liaisons copies of the emails that we send to students with information about the program, to keep you in the loop.
Student registration will be handled online this year. Student registration will begin online on Monday, February 23 and end on Friday, March 13. Please stress to your students the importance of registering by the deadline. Because of the verification process that will have to take place immediately after student registration closes, we will not be able to accept any late student registrations. Every year we hear from many disappointed students who miss the deadline. We ask for your help in publicizing this opportunity to your students early and often!
LAW SCHOOL REGISTRATION & STUDENT VERIFICATION
Online student registration should make your role in the process much easier. Here's an overview of the law school registration and student verification process this year:
- Law School Registration will take place online again this year as it did last year. Law School Registration will begin on Monday, January 19 and end on Friday, February 13. Please note that this year, as was the case last year, there will not be a registration fee for law schools.
- When you register as a Law School, you will be asked whether you plan to pay the $35 registration fee for each of your students or whether they will be responsible for paying the fee themselves.
- If you will be paying the registration fee for your students, we will set your school up on the student registration website so that your students will not need to pay anything when they register online.
- If you will not be paying the fee for your students, we will set your school up on the student registration website so that your students will need to pay the $35 fee with a credit card to complete their online registration.
- Please note that this registration fee is non-refundable - if for any reason you later decide to pay this fee for your students, we will not be able to refund any fees that your students have already paid through online registration. Accordingly, please make the policy decision about whether or not you will pay for your students before you register for the program.
- Once student registration has closed on March 13, we will create a spreadsheet for each school including the students from that school who have registered. We will email these spreadsheets to you the week of March 16.
- You will then need to verify two important pieces of information for each student on the spreadsheet we send you:
1. That each student who registered is, in fact, a student in good standing at your law school; and 2. That each student has accurately reported his or her anticipated graduation date. - You will not need to verify any of the other student information (email address, telephone number, etc.) because we will be uploading the student information into Symplicity exactly as it was entered by the students online.
- Once you have verified the student information, you will need to send an email to Law-PatentProgram@luc.edu by Thursday, April 9, either letting us know that the information for all of your students is correct or letting us know of any discrepancies in the information provided by your students.
- We will correct any discrepencies you notify us of and upload the student information into Symplicity so that students may begin uploading resumes and bidding on interviews on Thursday, April 22.
- For those schools that have chosen to pay the registration fee for your students, we will email you an invoice for $35 times the number of students from your school who have registered. Although we ask that you process this invoice for payment as soon as possible, your students will be considered registered and will be uploaded to Symplicity, even if we haven't received your check by April 22.
Only law students are eligible to participate in the Patent Law Interview Program. It is not required that students be patent bar eligible to register for the program; however, many employers require patent bar eligibility as a qualification for bidding on interviews, and most employers strongly prefer patent bar eligible students. For more information on eligibility for the patent bar, please refer to the General Requirements Bulliten from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
The 2009 Patent Law Interview Program will be accepting registrations from:
- JD students graduating in May/June 2010 (3Ls)
- JD students graduating in May/June 2011 (2Ls)
- JD students graduating in December 2009/January 2010 (3Ls)
- JD students graduating in December 2010/January 2011 (2Ls)
- Students in Intellectual Property LLM programs with anticipated graduation dates in 2010 and 2011 (LLMs)
Students who will graduate before the program is held in July 2009 and students who plan to graduate after May/June 2011 are not eligible for the 2009 Patent Law Interview Program.
For students, we have negotiated a $159 rate at the nearby Doubletree Hotel located at 300 E. Ohio Street and a $99 rate at the recently renovated Loyola dorms located at 26 E. Pearson Street. Additional information about reserving rooms at these rates will be provided to registered students prior to the Patent Law Interview Program this summer.
Students should not make airline reservations before learning of their final interview schedules on June 24, as the interview schedules are subject to change up to that date. Please also note that any travel plans students make must accommodate the on-site registration requirement. Because students must register by 8:30 am on the day of their interviews, we do not recommend flying in the morning of the interviews. Even a short delay could cause students to miss on-site registration and forfeit all of their interviews for that day.
When making travel plans, students should also bear in mind that there will be a cocktail reception at the interview hotel on Thursday, July 30 from 5:30 pm until 7:00 pm for all participating law students and employers. This is an excellent networking opportunity, and we encourage all students to arrange their travel schedule to attend the reception.
LAW SCHOOL/STUDENT IMPORTANT DATES FOR THE 2009 PATENT PROGRAM
| Monday, January 19 | Law School Registration Begins |
| Friday, February 13 | Deadline for Law School Registration |
| Monday, February 23 | Student Registration Begins |
| Friday, March 13 | Deadline for Student Registration |
| Thursday, April 9 | Deadline for Law Schools to verify student information |
| Tuesday, April 21 | Students receive Symplicity passwords/bidding instructions |
| Wednesday, April 22 | Student Bidding Begins |
| Monday, May 11 | Deadline for Student Bidding |
| Tuesday, June 16 | Initial Interview schedules available on Symplicity |
| Tuesday, June 16 - Sunday, June 21 | Interview Cancellation Period |
| Wednesday, June 24 | Final Schedules available on Symplicity |
| Thursday, July 30 & Friday, July 31 | 2009 Patent Law Interview Program |
We are using the email address Law-PatentProgram@luc.edu again this year.
