Hiring patent counsel

Hiring in-house patent counsel? Keep your patent work moving while you search.

A search for experienced in-house patent counsel can take months. Meanwhile, deadlines keep coming, engineers keep shipping, and launches keep getting scheduled. Fractional Patent Counsel can cover the role during the search, serve as an alternative to the hire, or add capacity once your new counsel starts.

The practice is led by a former USPTO patent examiner and USPTO-registered patent attorney with 15+ years of patent experience and more than 500 applications drafted.

Book an intro call See the options

How companies use us

Four ways to fill the gap.

During the search

Cover the role until your hire starts

Reserved weekly or monthly capacity keeps the patent function running: deadlines tracked, outside firms directed, new inventions triaged, and filing decisions made before launches rather than after. When your hire starts, the engagement can step down or end.

Instead of the hire

A fractional alternative

Hiring experienced in-house patent counsel can require a substantial six-figure annual budget once salary, benefits, and support costs are included. If your patent workload doesn't fill a full-time role, reserved capacity can deliver the same function in the hours you actually need.

After the hire

Capacity for the counsel you hire

A first in-house patent attorney often inherits a backlog and a portfolio no one has organized. Fractional support can clear the backlog, run invention harvesting, or cover technology outside their background, so your new hire can focus on strategy from day one.

Before the hire

Help scoping the role

Not sure whether you need a full-time hire, what seniority, or what the role should own? A short engagement can assess your portfolio and invention flow, and help you define the position, so the person you hire fits the work you actually have.

What stays covered

The work that can't wait for a hire.

Deadlines & docketOffice action responses, continuation decisions, and maintenance fees tracked and flagged before they're urgent.

Outside counsel directionFiling priorities and claim strategy set for your firms, with drafts reviewed against the approved disclosure.

Invention intakeNew disclosures triaged as they arrive: file, keep as a trade secret, or hold and watch.

Launches & disclosuresPapers, demos, and product releases reviewed in advance, so patent rights aren't lost to timing.

A clean handoff

Your new counsel inherits a portfolio, not a puzzle.

Everything is documented as we go: the status of every family, why each application was filed and what it is meant to cover, open deadlines, and the decisions made along the way. When your hire starts, they get a complete handoff package and a working session to walk through it.

This work is built to complement your existing setup. We coordinate with your outside firms and defer to them where they lead. Engagements are scoped in a clear engagement letter, and capacity plans run month to month after a short initial term, so coverage can end cleanly when your hire is in place.

How it works

From first call to coverage.

STEP 1

Intro call

Thirty minutes on the role, the timing, and what can't wait.

STEP 2

Conflicts check

Cleared before any substantive discussion begins.

STEP 3

Engagement letter

Scope, reserved hours, and fees set out in writing.

STEP 4

Coverage

Docket review, open matters, and outside firm introductions first.

STEP 5

Handoff

Step down, continue in support, or end when your hire is in place.

Personalized legal advice begins only after conflicts clearance and a signed engagement agreement. Please don't share confidential or invention-specific details before then.

Get in touch

Let's keep your patent work moving.

A short call about the role you're hiring for, the timing, and whether fractional coverage fits. If a full-time hire is the right answer on its own, we'll say so.

Book an intro call Email us

[email protected]