Intellectual property agency generally refers to the act of handling intellectual property affairs on behalf of the parties, mainly including patent agency and trademark agency, as well as other intellectual property agency acts such as copyright registration agency and integrated circuit layout design registration agency.
After China's entry into WTO, the domestic market will be opened to the outside world, and the benefits will greatly increase the overseas application and transnational intellectual property disputes, which will increase the demand for intellectual property agents. It can be said that intellectual property agency is a new service industry that has developed rapidly with the rise of knowledge economy, the trend of world economic integration and a large number of intellectual achievements.
With the strengthening of science and technology and intellectual property protection, setting up intellectual property barriers has become a new means for enterprises or countries to restrict competitors from obtaining monopoly profits. Reflected in international trade, it has the color of trade protectionism and has become a new type of non-tariff barrier. Because this new barrier is extremely concealed, all enterprises and countries are consciously strengthening the setting of this barrier (especially developed countries and multinational companies), which will inevitably lead to a large number of lawsuits related to intellectual property disputes, and then promote the rapid development of China's intellectual property agency industry.
An agent who performs trademark agency work is called a trademark agent, and there are no special agents in other intellectual property categories.
Patent agents must be accredited by the state before they can represent patent affairs, otherwise they are called black agents. To obtain the qualification of patent agent, it is required to obtain a nationally recognized bachelor's degree or above in science and engineering, and obtain a graduation certificate. After passing the patent agent examination and obtaining the qualification certificate, I worked as an intern in a patent agency for one year and became a patent agent after obtaining the practice certificate. 1 1 month, the first weekend exam, the pass rate is about 10%. You can go to the patent office website to see if your major is in the designated science and engineering catalogue, and then decide whether to register. What do you say about the employment prospects? If you focus on the future, it is definitely promising, and it is difficult to get a good salary. If you have a master's degree or above in engineering, if you have a strong English, legal background, computer communication and other majors, you can consider entering this industry, but it is difficult at first, so you should be prepared for long-term struggle. It should be noted that although they are all industries that need to evaluate their qualifications to represent legal affairs, patent agents are different from lawyers, and they have their own division of labor. Generally speaking, patent agents are limited to dealing with patent-related affairs and are not good at legal affairs other than patents; Lawyers are good at legal affairs other than patents. Due to the limitation of technical background and unfamiliarity with the special provisions of patents, they generally do not have the ability to handle patent affairs.
A person engaged in trademark agency business is called a trademark agent. In the past, they needed professional qualifications to practice. Later, the vocational qualification examination was cancelled and the industry became more and more chaotic. It is said that the professional qualification examination for trademark agents has been planned, but when it is planned is still uncertain.