Patent attorneys draft specifications, file applications and answer examination reports, with deadlines set by the patent office and no room to slip. Their teams need technical depth, patience and steady habits more than speed.
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Share your requirementsA patent practice helps inventors and companies protect their inventions. The senior attorney or patent agent leads, with technical associates who are engineers or scientists and draft specifications and claims, searchers who check prior art, a docketing team who track filing and response dates, and administrators who handle forms, fees and client communication. An invention disclosure may come from a lab, a start-up or an overseas client in a different time zone. Drafting takes time and care, because wording decides the strength of protection. Responses to examination reports have fixed dates, and a missed date can end an application. Staff handle unpublished inventions, so secrecy is serious. Training a technical graduate to draft well takes years, and the best are tempted by large corporate IP teams. See also HR for IP law firms.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in patent attorneys. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A single overlooked response date can end a client's application, so the docketing person carries constant dread.
A new technical graduate needs long guided practice, and the senior has little time to coach.
Drafts reach the attorney days before the filing date, and the associate rewrites at night.
Calls and emails come late at night or early morning, and the team has no rules on availability.
A chemistry associate is handed a software invention, and quality suffers.
Drafts move on chat, on personal laptops and in shared folders without clear rules.
When the docketing person is away, nobody understands the tracker or the foreign agent trail.
Large companies offer stable pay and regular hours to associates who can draft well.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Policies, Compliance and Governance; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a patent attorneys business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Every date has a primary and a backup, with reminders at set intervals, reviewed weekly.
Every date has a primary and a backup, with reminders at set intervals, reviewed weekly. Record in documentation.
Stages from searcher to junior drafter to full drafter, with sample specifications and feedback at each step.
Stages from searcher to junior drafter to full drafter, with sample specifications and feedback at each step. See learning plans.
A rule on how many days before a filing date the draft reaches the attorney, and a checklist for each stage.
A rule on how many days before a filing date the draft reaches the attorney, and a checklist for each stage.
A skills map of associates by field, used when allocating files, with a plan to widen skills slowly.
A skills map of associates by field, used when allocating files, with a plan to widen skills slowly.
Who may open which files, how drafts are shared and what applies on leaving.
Who may open which files, how drafts are shared and what applies on leaving. Teach it during onboarding.
Fixed call windows and a rotating duty, with time off afterwards.
Fixed call windows and a rotating duty, with time off afterwards. Plan cover with leave rules.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A docket procedure and role descriptions that survive absence or exit.
A staged drafting path with real feedback.
Secrecy and file-handling rules given before a draft is opened.
Cover for overseas client calls and filing weeks.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
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How an India head can sort a global parent's HR policies into apply, adapt or replace, write an India addendum with advisers, and keep headquarters on side.
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What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
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Keep one docket, give every date two owners and review it weekly with a senior. Reminders alone are not enough without owners.
Several years for full independence. Use stages, samples and regular feedback to shorten the path without lowering quality.
Set a number of days before filing for the draft to reach review, track the actual time and talk about misses. Late drafts are usually a planning problem.
Agree call windows with the client, rotate duty and give time back. Constant availability wears out the best people.
Limit access, control sharing, brief staff at joining and cover leavers' duties in writing. Confirm legal duties with a qualified professional.
How dates are tracked, how drafters are trained, when drafts reach review and why associates leave. A docket procedure, a drafting ladder or a review timetable is a likely start. Scope, timing and fees are put in writing after that talk.
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