Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a telephone broadcasting service, a social network for patent lawyers (see article below), and a social network for marketing your firm. Don't miss the next issue.
Reinvent Your Patent Practice
By Peter R. Olson
Did you know that two of America's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were accomplished inventors? Among other things, Franklin developed bifocal glasses and the lightening rod while Jefferson invented a dumb waiter. Both men refused to patent their inventions, preferring to provide for the public good rather than personal profit. Fortunately for you, most inventors feel otherwise.
Patent Buddy ... in One Sentence
Patent Buddy is a social network for patent lawyers and patent agents designed to facilitate networking, recruiting, and client development.
The Killer Feature
More than the work product created by lawyers in other practice areas, patents can serve as an excellent marketing tool for patent lawyers.
Patent Buddy enables you to create a professional profile in which you can list your qualifications and list patents that you have successfully prosecuted. Because your profile resides on the Web, you can link directly to the patents so that prospective clients or other law firms can review your work.
Other Notable Features
In addition to professional profiles, Patent Buddy offers three other core services — job hunting, networking, and research.
The Opportunities feature enables you to stay on top of actual and possible patent job openings in your area. For example, Patent Buddy notifies you when a patent lawyer leaves a firm. By acting quickly, you could apply for that vacated position before the firm begins seeking a replacement.
If you're a managing parter, you can use a similar feature to keep track of the activity of competing firms — who they hire, which patents they file, etc.
Patent lawyers who often work with other firms that don't have any patent lawyers can use the networking features to stay top of mind with such firms. You can receive email notices from Patent Buddy showing when and how frequently people have accessed your profile.
Patent Buddy also provides a career news blog and job posting board. You can search for jobs by location, specialization, education, experience, and job type.
What Else Should You Know?
Patent Buddy claims to track 39,072 patent lawyers and agents and 12,967 organizations as of today. You can join for free, but you must have a USPTO registration number. Learn more about Patent Buddy.
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