Info for Law Schools

ONLINE LAW SCHOOL REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 PATENT LAW INTERVIEW PROGRAM
WILL OPEN ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013.

Register online from January 15 through February 7.

HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS

For students, participation in the program takes place in three phases:

STEP 1:
First, students register for the program online. Each student’s law school then verifies the student’s graduation date and status as a student in good standing. Once the verification is complete, all qualified students are given a Patent Symplicity account for bidding on interviews at the Patent Law Interview Program.

STEP 2:
Once registered students have access to the Patent Symplicity site, they upload their resume and bid on the participating employers in which they are interested. The employers review the resumes submitted to them and select the students they wish to interview and alternate students to be scheduled in the event of cancellations or no-shows. Once the employers have selected the students they wish to interview, Symplicity generates interview schedules, which will be available on Symplicity on June 24. After a brief cancellation period, Symplicity will schedule students chosen by the employers as alternates into any interview slots opened up as the result of cancellations. Final interview schedules will be available on Symplicity on June 28.

STEP 3:
Students who have been selected for interviews must register on-site at the interview hotel (Embassy Suites Chicago – Downtown/Lakefront) either the evening before their interview (4:00 pm – 7:00 pm) or the morning of their interviews (7:30 am – 8:30 am). The on-site registration requirement is MANDATORY and we will make no exceptions.

Students need only register once on-site to be considered registered for interviews on both days. Students who have not registered by 8:30 am on Thursday, August 1 will have all of their Thursday slots given to alternates; students who still have not registered by 8:30 am on Friday, August 2 will have all of their Friday interview slots given to alternates.

Alternate scheduling will take place in the registration room at 8:30 am each day, and all students selected as alternates who are interested in being scheduled for empty interview slots resulting from no-shows must be present in the registration room at that time.

PROGRAM FEES

The law student registration fee is $35 and is non-refundable. There is no fee for law schools to register for the Patent Law Interview Program. Instead, we require that every registering school designate a Patent Program Liaison to communicate with, and educate your students about, the program. We will send detailed emails and answers to frequently asked questions to the Patent Program Liaisons throughout the year leading up to the program at the end of July. We will refer all student questions to the Patent Program Liaisons, and we ask that you only pass questions on to us that you are unable to answer from the materials we’ve provided. We will also send the Patent Program Liaisons copies of the emails that we send to students with information about the program, to keep you in the loop.

STUDENT REGISTRATION

Student registration will be handled online again this year. Student registration will begin online on Monday, February 11 and end on Monday, March 4. Please stress to your students the importance of registering by the deadline. Because of the verification process that will have to take place immediately after student registration closes, we will not be able to accept any late student registrations. Every year we hear from many disappointed students who miss the deadline. We ask for your help in publicizing this opportunity to your students early and often!

STUDENT ELIGIBILITY

Only law students are eligible to participate in the Patent Law Interview Program. It is not required that students be patent bar eligible to register for the program; however, many employers require patent bar eligibility as a qualification for bidding on interviews, and most employers strongly prefer patent bar eligible students. For more information on eligibility for the patent bar, please refer to the General Requirements Bulletin from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The 2013 Patent Law Interview Program will be accepting registrations from:

• JD students graduating in May/June 2014 (3Ls)
• JD students graduating in May/June 2015 (2Ls)
• JD students graduating in December 2013/January 2014 (3Ls)
• JD students graduating in December 2014/January 2015 (2Ls)
• Students in Intellectual Property LLM programs with anticipated graduation dates in 2014 and 2015

Students who will graduate before the program is held in August 2013 and students who plan to graduate after May/June 2015 are not eligible for the 2013 Patent Law Interview Program.

LAW SCHOOL REGISTRATION & STUDENT VERIFICATION

Here’s an overview of the law school registration and student verification process:

• Law School Registration will begin on Tuesday, January 15 and end on Thursday, February 7.
• When you register as a Law School, you will be asked whether you plan to pay the $35 registration fee for each of your students or whether they will be responsible for paying the fee themselves.
• If you will be paying the registration fee for your students, we will set your school up on the student registration website so that your students will not need to pay anything when they register online.
• If you will not be paying the fee for your students, we will set your school up on the student registration website so that your students will need to pay the $35 fee with a credit card to complete their online registration.
• Please note that the student registration fee is non-refundable – if for any reason you later decide to pay this fee for your students, we will not be able to refund any fees that your students have already paid through online registration. Accordingly, please make the policy decision about whether or not you will pay for your students before you register for the program.
• Once student registration has closed on March 4, we will create a spreadsheet for each school including the students from that school who have registered. We will email these spreadsheets to you by Friday, March 8.
• You will then need to verify two important pieces of information for each student on the spreadsheet we send you:
  1. That each student who registered is, in fact, a law student at your law school; and
  2. That each student has accurately reported his or her anticipated graduation date.
• You will not need to verify any of the other student information (email address, telephone number, etc.) because we will be uploading the student information into Symplicity exactly as it was entered by the students online.
• Once you have verified the student information, you will need to send an email to law-patentprogram@luc.edu by Thursday, April 4, either letting us know that the information for all of your students is correct or letting us know of any discrepancies in the information provided by your students.
• We will correct any discrepencies you notify us of and upload the student information into Symplicity so that students may begin uploading resumes and bidding on interviews on Tuesday, April 16.
• For those schools that have chosen to pay the registration fee for your students, we will email you an invoice for $35 times the number of students from your school who have registered. Although we ask that you process this invoice for payment as soon as possible, your students will be considered registered and will be uploaded to Symplicity, even if we haven’t received your check by April 16.

HOTEL & TRAVEL INFORMATION

Additional information about reserving rooms at a special rate will be provided to registered students prior to the Patent Law Interview Program this summer.

Students should not make airline reservations before learning of their final interview schedules on June 28, as the interview schedules are subject to change up to that date. Please also note that any travel plans students make must accommodate the on-site registration requirement. Because students must register by 8:30 am on the day of their interviews, we do not recommend flying in the morning of the interviews. Even a short delay could cause students to miss on-site registration and forfeit all of their interviews for that day.

When making travel plans, students should also bear in mind that there will be a cocktail reception at the interview hotel on Thursday, August 1 from 5:30 pm until 7:00 pm for all participating law students and employers. This is an excellent networking opportunity, and we encourage all students to arrange their travel schedule to attend the reception.

IMPORTANT DATES FOR LAW STUDENTS & LAW SCHOOLS

January 15	Law School Registration Begins
February 7	Deadline for Law School Registration
February 11	Student Registration Begins
March 4	Deadline for Student Registration
April 4	Deadline for law schools to verify student information
April 15	Students receive Symplicity passwords/bidding instructions
April 16	Student Bidding Begins
May 2	Deadline for Student Bidding
June 24	Initial interview schedules available on Symplicity
June 24 – June 26	Interview Cancellation Period
June 28	Final interview schedules available on Symplicity
August 1 & August 2	2013 Patent Law Interview Program