Copyright, Patent, and Trademark Group Jobs

This group includes all classes of positions, the duties of which are to advise on, administer, supervise, or perform professional scientific, technical, and legal work involved in the cataloging and registration of copyright, in the classification and issuance of patents, in the registration of trade-marks, in the prosecution of applications for patents before the Patent Office, and in the giving of advice to government officials on patent matters.

There are 9,825 employed in this group. The majority of positions are with the Department of Commerce with 9,677 employed. The Navy Department employs 46, with the Department of the Army employing 25, and NASA has 19 working in this group.

The following information is compiled from numerous federal documents including qualification standards, job announcements, career articles, occupation flysheets, FEDSCOPE, OPM, Agency websites, interviews with federal employees, The United States Government Manual, and from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook.

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• Job Series Definitions
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Job Listings by Occupation

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series. Click on “Private Sector Job Listings” to search for related occupations in the private sector.)

Review the job vacancy announcements and Qualification Standards for the job you are interested in.

Job Series Definitions

These position descriptions are excerpted from the qualification standards for each job title in this group. In the General Schedule position classification system is established under chapter 51 of title 5, United States Code. The term “General Schedule” or “GS” denotes the major position classification system and pay structure for white collar work in the Federal government. Agencies that are no longer subject to chapter 51 have replaced the GS pay plan indicator with agency-unique pay plan indicators. For example, the Bureau of Prisons uses GL instead of the GS designation. For this reason, reference to General Schedule or GS is often omitted from the individual qualification standard sheets.

A brief introduction for major occupations within this group is provided below.

Patent Administration GS-1220

There is no OPM qualification standard for this series. These positions are in the excepted service, and the Department of Commerce establishes their own qualification requirements for them.

The federal government employs 344 in this series. All work for the Department of Commerce.

Patent administrators are responsible for supporting patent attorneys. They perform a variety of administrative and general office duties and tasks. They often draft various patent-related documents and forms, draft correspondence and memos. If required, they may be asked to develop presentations. Administrators also must file patent related documents either in a file system or electronically.

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series.)

• USAJOBS GS-1220 (Patent Administrator Federal Job List)

Patent Attorney GS-1222

This series includes positions involved with performing professional legal, scientific, and technical work concerning patents including rendering opinions on validity and infringement of patents, negotiation of patent licenses, settlement of patent claims, negotiation of patent clauses in contracts, providing professional legal advice to contracting officers and other procurement personnel on patent matters, and the preparation and/or presentation of briefs and arguments before the Patent Office or before the Federal Courts. Also included in this series are positions which, in addition to the foregoing, may be involved with performing similar professional legal functions regarding trademark. The work of this series requires training equivalent to that represented by graduation (with a degree in one of the scientific or engineering disciplines) from an accredited college or university, in addition to a degree from a recognized law school and admission to the bar.

The federal government employs 458 patent attorneys. The Department of Commerce employs 341, the Navy Department 46, Army 25, the Energy Department 21 and NASA employs 19.

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series.)

• USAJOBS GS-1222 (Patent Attorney Federal Job Listings)

Patent Classifying GS-1223

This series includes all professional, scientific, and technical positions which are primarily concerned with developing and/or administering systems for the classification, for patent purposes, of the technological knowledge embodied in United States patents and related material.

The federal government employs 50 patent attorneys. The Department of Commerce employs all in this series.

Before a patent application can be either approved or rejected, it must pass through an extensive process of examination. Patent classification plays an important role in almost every stage of this examining process.

When an application is first received by the Applications Division, for example, the first thing that is done is to classify it, i.e., to determine, in accordance with the instructions of the patent classification staff, to which of the hundreds of classes and thousands of sub-classes the particular “invention” claimed in the application belongs. On this basis, the application is assigned to a particular examining division for processing (the examining divisions are organized and staffed according to the nature of the classes and sub-classes of inventions which they are assigned).

Within the examining division, the key determination of the entire examining process is made: whether or not the claimed “invention” constitutes a significant and useful advance over what is already known — i.e., whether or not the claimed “invention” is in fact new and patentable. In the gathering of information on which to base this key determination, the adequacy or inadequacy of the patent classification system which has been set up to cover the given class or sub-class of invention is of critical importance.

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series.)

• USAJOBS GS-1223 (Patent Classifier Federal Jobs)

Patent Examining GS-1224

This series includes all classes of positions, the duties of which are to advise on, administer, supervise, or perform professional, scientific, technological, and legal work involved in the examination and disposition of applications for patents, exclusive of design patents, to determine the grant or denial of patents based on such applications, and in the adjudication of petitions and appeals from decisions on such applications. Such work in its various aspects involves the utilization of the basic and advanced concepts of the natural sciences, the techniques of all branches of engineering and of the industrial arts, and the application of those aspects of procedural and substantive law generally, and of the statutory and case law applied to patents specifically, which are applicable to the patent examining process.

The federal government employs 8,757 patent examiners. The Department of Commerce employs all in this series.

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series.)

• USAJOBS GS-1224 (Patent Examiner Federal Job Lists)

Design Patent Examining GS-1226

This series includes all classes of positions the duties of which are to supervise or perform professional, technical and legal work involved in the granting or denial of applications for design patents. Such work involves the employment of basic concepts of the natural sciences, techniques of the industrial arts, fundamentals of aesthetic and functional design, and the application of statutes and precedent procedures in design patent matters.

The federal government employs 8,757 patent examiners. The Department of Commerce employs all in this series.

Job Series Titles: (The USAJOBS selection lists all federal job vacancies for this job series.)

• USAJOBS GS-1226 (Design Patent Examiner Federal Job Lists)