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December 17, 2004
Can This Be Done Better/Faster/Cheaper in India?
I think that, to a very large extent, you get what you pay for.
When you look at industries in the US that are amenable to offshoring to India, the legal industry parallels the medical industry. An absolutely essential part of the service, be it legal or medical, involves personal, local communication. The client or patient must look the lawyer or doctor straight in the eye.
Patent law does not require a local presence, however, and is immune from the locality of services, such as filing papers at the local courthouse or arguing in court. It also can be practiced outside of the auspices of the ABA and their chokehold on the legal services industry.
Further, patent law requires more education and experience in technology than it does law. That, coupled with the fact that patent attorneys/agents are a rare commodity with extraordinarily high billing rates, makes patent law a likely opportunity for outsourcing.
On the one side of the scale, some patent attorneys are little more than scriveners: glorified typists who put an invention in legalese and fill out paperwork. These are the guys who take whatever the client/inventor says, writes it down, and offers nothing more.
In some of these cases, the client may be to blame. Sometimes, a prima donna client dictates exactly what he/she wants in the patent and does not use the agent/attorney’s expertise.
On the other side of the scale, the patent agent/attorney is an integral member of the management team. He/she knows the business as well as the invention. The patent is written with a long term view of the business as well as with a complete understanding of the technology in the company.
Often, the best agent/attorney is one who has worked in industry, has sweat the details of getting a product out the door, and who knows how the inner workings of the company operate. This type of advisor can craft the patent to do much, much more than the scrivener could ever do.
A well crafted and well executed patent strategy, one that evolves and is tuned to the company, is often its single biggest asset. This does not happen when ideas are sent to a scrivener, either locally or shipped half way around the world.
In some instances, it may make economic sense to send a patent to India to be searched, written, and filed. When the development and implementation of a long term strategy must be met, I don’t see how the same level of expertise can come from half way around the world.
Posted by krajec at December 17, 2004 02:22 PM
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