The term “patent bar exam” refers to an examination that attorneys or lawyers must pass in order to practice before a country’s patent-granting body. Patent law practice is governed by specific rules in each country. Around the world, patent law is a restricted, complex field of law that almost always necessitates passing a difficult exam. Although the United States is one of the few jurisdictions that requires a patent bar exam, the term has come to refer to any country’s patent law exam, regardless of its specific title.
Patent lawyers assist clients in preparing patent applications, prosecuting patents before the national patent agency, and challenging patents for infringement. The United States Patent and Trademark Office administers the patent bar exam. If a person passes the patent bar exam before the state bar exam, he or she is referred to as a patent agent rather than a patent attorney. The patent bar is widely regarded as one of the most difficult exams to pass in the United States due to the breadth of technical knowledge required. It had a failure rate of around 60% as of 2010. There is no limit to the number of times a person can take the exam.
The system is similar in the United Kingdom. Lawyers in the United Kingdom must pass the “Chartered Patent Attorney Qualification.” In the United Kingdom, lawyers can practice patent law without first practicing general law. Law students with a law degree can take the patent qualification exam right away. The chartered exam is generally just as difficult as its American counterpart.
Passing the patent qualification will allow British lawyers to practice patent law in the United Kingdom, but passing additional exams will allow them to practice patent law in the European Union as a whole. There is no unified EU patent law, and each EU country’s patent practice is governed by its own set of rules and laws. Lawyers have two options for practicing patent law across the EU: either meet the examination requirements of each country in which they wish to practice, or attempt to qualify as a European Patent Attorney. To become a European Patent Attorney, a lawyer must first be licensed as a patent attorney in one of the EU member states, and then apply to take the European Patent Attorney Qualification, which consists of four additional exams.
Part of the reason for the exclusivity of patent practice is that it is the most technically complex of all areas of law. Patent applications and prosecutions frequently involve disagreements over highly specific scientific and engineering issues. To ensure that only legitimate and sufficiently unique inventions receive national patent protection, successful patent practice necessitates not only knowledge of the law, but also the ability to apply facts to that law. Patents are only a small part of the intellectual property law landscape. Failure to pass the patent bar exam has no bearing on a lawyer’s ability to practice in other fields, such as trademark or copyright law, which usually do not require any additional exams.