An IPR Career Guide

Why To Choose Intellectual Property Rights As A Career?

A Comprehensive Guide On Selecting IPR As A Career Choice

Have you ever wondered what makes any Pharmaceutical Drug sell in dollars while the actual price for a bulk drug is only a few cents per kilogram?

What makes Google the number "1" search engine today?

Or for that instance take any successful company be it Apple, IBM, Tesla, Gilead, Nestle, or any other giant in their field, what makes them reach the heights of success where they exist?

As a result of my research and brainstorming, I could conclude at one indispensable component of these companies' tendency to protect their intangible assets. And, that could simply be achieved by securing their INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.

A Paradigm Shift

Witnessing currently happening paradigm shift is crucial to taking a call on future possibilities. IPR has continued to be a guiding light amidst odds and evens of globally occurring events. We have seen the heavy amount of weightage given on the protection of vaccine formula against Novel Corona Virus, which is still under development as of today. This has proven worth of those associated with IPR in as much as equal proportion.

According to facts found, IPR enacts as a connecting link between creation, protection, and execution. In entirety, it behaves as a chain of consecutive actions leading to a successful business as depicted in the above graphical representation. With continued IP awareness campaigns, it promises a truly dynamic and fulfilling career prospect.

Analyze Whether IPR Is A Field Falling At The Intersection Of Your Skills And Area Of Interest 

Using above Venn-diagram, one can be sure of whether to choose IPR as a potential career or not.

Being associated with IPR, I am certainly sure about the scope and opportunities offered by this field are abundant and ample to let anyone thrive on these promising opportunities for a lifetime. Now, let us focus on the required skills and area of interest that one might possess.

Skillset Required:

1. Love for Language: The most important skill required in the IPR field is of reading, interpreting, and understanding. All three should fall in alignment with what is required to be done. For getting anything right and reading between the lines, one surely needs to have a passionate love for language and readiness to continuously undergo a learning curve of adding new language skills to one's skill set.
2. Scientific Temperament: Seemingly obvious this is a skill that cannot be instilled in any individual. One needs to develop this crucial skill on its own. However, there do exist some fields where artistic and creative temperament are required over scientific temperament and they are Copyrights, Design and Trademarks segments of IPR.
3. Critical Analysis: Knowing thoroughly a topic or product you are dealing with is crucial to one's development in IPR. Hence, researching abilities, reaching the depth of a product and critical analysis of logical facts associated with that product are a bunch of skills that will always stay in IPR demand.
4. Strong Interpersonal Skills: The reason why I sequenced this skill set at a later chronological order is just because these skills can be learned and developed even after choosing IPR as a potential career. However, being already in possession of such strong communicational, organizational and presentational skills could always be seen as the cherry on the cake.
5. Confidentiality and Credibility: Though it would be inappropriate to address these qualities as skills, they cannot be endorsed or taught by external means. These characteristics are vital and most wanted in the field of IPR. As this industry revolves around the concept of novelty and first to invent concepts, maintaining the confidentiality of innovations and creations is always the fundamental need to be assessed in a potential candidate. Continual pursuance of confidentiality quality leads to the development of credibility of a candidate in the IPR fraternity and this can prove vital to one's growth in the IPR field.

Assessing Area Of Interest:

1. Curiosity: Are you someone who continuously seeks ways to feed your curious and questioning mind? Ask yourself whether solving puzzles and daily life questions excite you? Can you find ways and means to deliberately ease your tasks? If any or all of these questions had an affirmative answer from your head and heart, congratulations the IPR field is the correct choice for you.
2. Debate-o-philic: Do you possess a keen interest in participating in debates? You must be wondering — why is it important to participate or like debates? The best answer to this lies in an IPR professional's ability to convince an Examiner at Patent, Trademark, or Copyrights office during prosecution, litigation, or any other presentation that your or your client's Intellectual Property is novel and is liable to issue protection for the determined period of time. For developing these skills, it is extremely important to possess a reasonable liking and loving attitude towards logical debates and discussions.
3. Liking of numbers: IPR is certainly not a field of choice and trial for anyone who suffers Numerophobia (irrational fear of numbers). I certainly do not intend to mean that an IPR aspirant should be well-versed in mathematics. Numbers are not always about Maths. Here, numbers stand for sequence and serial numbering. An intellectual property asset is given a unique identification number in a specific territory of protection. Making mistakes with IP asset numbers is just an intolerable offense. Therefore, if you are someone who likes not to mess with numbers, go for the IPR field.
4. Limelight seeking: Excited to know more about this? Bearing a fact that the IPR is a blooming field, it gives ample opportunity to professionals associated with this field to enjoy limelight at some or the other instant in one's career timeline. The science behind curtain goes this way that professionals or individuals associated with IPR definitely possess a few or many special skills in terms of interpersonal or charismatic characteristics. If you are somebody who is ready to face and be out there in limelight now or later, IPR could be the right way for you.
5. Facing risk: No career option could be free of thorns. Every coin has two sides. Similarly, the IPR field also has its own pros and cons. While making a career choice, one must consider that the IPR field has bold probabilities of landing its associates in huge and engaging techno-legal issues. If you or your company has breached IP law of third-party, there could be consequences that you or your company would be liable to pay off heavily for damages the third party has suffered so far. This has been included in the area of interest for the sole reason of making one aware of risk factors involved while choosing the IPR as your way forward. Nevertheless, there are many adventurous people on this planet Earth who know very well how to deal with these risks and cope up with their consequential events. Don't be scared and dare to opt for this noble career opportunity.

Rewards One May Yield

While opting for a career option, all of us have a tendency to dive deeper into the benefits and rewards that it offers in exchange for our skills, knowledge, time, and application that we invest in. Well, IPR is a field directly implicating the involvement of finances, royalties, and large quantities of money. Hence, there would be a constant in-flow of cash provided the candidate has proven his worth by constantly leveraging skills and expanding application knowledge's horizons.

To start with, the entry-level salary ranges are pretty lucrative. In India, it starts with 3-5 LPA. Depending upon responsibilities and duties, salaries may vary to a large extent. While contemplating about rewards, one must always remember that there are "No Free Lunches" for anyone anywhere. Hence, sow high-quality seeds of ingenuity now while deciding on a career pursuit to reap fruitful rewards later on in the IPR field.

Conclusive Comments & Further Reading Recommendations

I would like to rest my pen now by throwing some focus on the core "Why IPR as a career?" question. IPR can assist you achieve both your short-term and long-term goals by enhancing your skills within the process. While the authenticity of your decision can be ensured by the level of comfort you reach in your research on various career subjects and rewards that they can bestow you with.

To help you with that process, here are some top recommended articles for your ready reference and further reading in order to make an informed decision:

• blog.ipleaders.in: Career Opportunities in IPR for Lawyers
• IIPTA: 8 Reasons: Why you should choose IPR as a career option?
• IPTSE: Prospects and Opportunities In The Field Of Intellectual Property Law

If this piece of information has added some value to your thought process on selecting IPR as a career choice, kindly consider commenting in the comment box and provide your valuable feedback.

Written by
Pooja  S Shah