Trainee Patent Attorney (Part-Qualified)

Term: Permanent
Working hours: Full-time
Department: Intellectual Property
Location: London
The firm

Lewis Silkin works with leading businesses to protect and enhance their most important assets - their ideas, their people, their brand and their future. We call it: Ideas. People. Possibilities.

With offices in London, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin and Hong Kong, we are recognised by clients and industry alike as being distinct for our unique culture, market-leading practice areas, sector focused approach and for providing solutions to complex, multijurisdictional business challenges, with a pragmatic and human touch. We have two things at our core: people — both ours and our clients’— and a focus on creative, tech and innovative businesses.

Our culture is encapsulated by an ethos of bravery and kindness, guided by our values of Integrity, Clarity, Unity and Excellence (our ‘I-CUE’). We aim to provide a supportive environment for our people, clients and wider community and embrace diversity & inclusion, ensuring people are able to bring their full selves to work.

The department

Our leading intellectual property practice is unique in its IP360 offering, advising clients on the filing prosecution, opposition, transaction and litigation of intellectual property rights across all technologies and across all sectors. Our IP practice is truly international, advising clients around the globe. We believe we are the go-to firm for household brands to deal with their full IP requirements.

We have dedicated litigation and commercial IP offerings and are involved in some of the most high-profile cases in the top courts, including the High Court, Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, CJEU, as well as contentious proceedings before the UKIPO, EPO and EUIPO.

Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be a key part of a hard-working, friendly and supportive team; therefore, the ideal candidate will be a strong team player and have experience working in a high performing and collaborative environment.

Qualififications and experience required: foundation level or equivalent (eg QM, Bournemouth, Brunel) and pre-EQE with approximately two years’ work experience in patents.

A technical background in any of the following areas: electrical engineering (including analogue and digital circuit design), software (including machine learning, neural networks) or telecommunications.

Our ideal candidate will:

  • have experience in drafting, filing and prosecution of software/electrical patents for UK or EPO;
  • have a degree in physics, computer science, engineering or similar related field
  • be commercially focussed and have a problem-solving approach
  • be keen to engage in business development and extracurricular activities
  • be flexible, highly organised, with a hands-on approach and able to prioritise work and deadlines effectively
  • be keen to be part of a multidisciplinary team of IP lawyers and to collaborate with IP litigators and other commercial lawyers

Abilities and desired experience:

  • commercially astute with strong analytical skills, as well as excellent verbal and written communication
  • team player
  • excellent time and deadline management skills
  • someone who is keen to enhance their professional as well as personal development
  • competency in MS Office suite
  • time recording experience

Professional qualifications required:

  • Part-Qualified UK and/or European Patent Attorney  
  • excellent academic background in a computing or electrical technical discipline
Additional information

At Lewis Silkin our ethos is simple. We strive to do the best for our clients, our people and the communities in which we operate. We recognise that an inclusive workplace allows for all kinds of ideas and thoughts, a variety of points of view that can trigger discussions or deliver innovative results, and a wide range of versatile skills and expertise. We are proud of the diversity within Lewis Silkin and of our culture that allows people to be themselves at work, ensuring we provide the best possible service to our clients. We are committed to finding the right person for this role and are open to discussing flexible working patterns and office location.