Information about training and admission to the register can be found on our website here.
To become a patent or trade mark attorney, you will be required to have a relevant undergraduate or postgraduate qualification and complete a number of exams as part of a wider work-based training programme.
To train as a patent attorney you are likely to have a scientific or technical background, this usually means a science or engineering degree from a university or similar institution. This is because you will need to understand at a fairly specialist level the technical details of the client’s idea.
Those looking to train as an attorney must have the ability to acquire, and enjoy exercising, legal skills of drafting, analysis and logical thought and have a good grasp of the English language. Many of these skills are obtained through a series of exams and on-the-job training.
Getting the necessary legal skills to be an attorney is usually by means of working in a firm or in a company's in-house legal department, supplemented by other studies.
Admission to either Register requires the passing of examinations and completion supervised training. Where a person has had more than four years' full time practice in intellectual property, they can apply to the register on the basis of their unsupervised experience, but applicants should be prepared to provide a significant amount of evidence of their competence.
It is usual for a person entering the profession to take four or five years to qualify.