Ashley Cowie
Ashley Cowie, PhD, is a Patent Scientist at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP. She received her PhD in Neuroscience from the Medical College of Wisconsin where she earned multiple awards including a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirchstein Predoctoral Fellowship and the First-place Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. Ashley finished grad school within 4.5 years with 4 first author publications (one of which was an editor’s choice article) and 3 middle author publications. In addition to publishing scientific articles, she also was a freelance science writer and was an author of science journalism articles. Ashley completed multiple internships during and after grad school in technology transfer and patent law, including an internship through the EDGE program which landed her a permanent role as a patent scientist.
Can you describe your academic and professional background? What path led you to pursue this field?
I earned my Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Neurobiology from the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). Specifically, I studied the mechanisms in the peripheral nervous system and innate immune system that underlie postoperative pain as well as the mechanisms in the peripheral nervous system that underlie neuropathic pain.
I have been a patent scientist at Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP (MBF) for a little over a year. I started with MBF through an internship called the EDGE program before being hired as a patent scientist. The internship provided me with hands-on experience in patent law, which was quite different from the technology transfer internship I did during graduate school - however, the technology transfer internship provided me with the foundation to do well in patent law. I was assigned work as if I was already a patent scientist, however I was able to learn the basics of patent law without needing to worry about billable hours. I would highly recommend the EDGE program for anyone who is new to patent law and a law firm environment.
I became interested in patent law by attending a roundtable discussion at MCW where a patent attorney discussed her profession. I found the variety of work interesting, so I followed up with the patent attorney to further discuss her career. This led me to take an intellectual property course offered by MCW that solidified my interest in patent law. To further learn about the intellectual property field, I became an intern in the technology transfer office at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin Research Institute (now Versiti) and earned a position on the leadership team for the Licensing Executive Society of Wisconsin (LES). I also gained experience on the business side of science by being a part of the leadership team for a biotechnology consulting group based out of MCW (Catalyst BioConsulting). Therefore, I developed a well-rounded perspective of the intellectual property field.
How did you find this particular position, and what was the hiring process like? Is there a typical structure for this in your field?
As mentioned above, I followed up with the patent attorney that presented at MCW. During our meeting she recommended other attorneys and agents to meet with. I set up informational interviews with the people she recommended and from those meetings, I learned of more patent professionals to connect with. I also met attorneys and agents though my tech transfer internship. Meeting one-on-one to discuss a career in patent law with these patent professionals was invaluable because they allowed me to build a network within the community I was hoping to become a part of, and allowed me to be more easily aware of job opportunities. My job search experience may differ from others because I was hoping to stay in the Midwest for family reasons. This narrowed the job market significantly, especially as a biologist, so I cannot stress enough how important networking is.
In fact, I found my current position by attending a networking event and approaching a MBF attorney I recognized from regional tech transfer group meetings that I attended. I had not yet networked with anyone from MBF at that point and wanted to make a connection. I told the attorney my aspirations and he informed me of the EDGE program. I applied to the EDGE program - it was a typical application where I submitted a cover letter, my CV, a writing sample, and my transcripts. Not long after applying I received an interview offer. During the interview I met with 6 patent professionals. The interview was set up where two people interviewed me at once (one of them was in person while the other was via video because the Life Science group at MBF is spread across multiple offices in various cities and states). I was asked questions about my thesis project (it is important to describe it in layman’s terms and not go into excruciating detail), why I was interested in patent law, my experiences as a tech transfer intern, leadership team member for Catalyst BioConsulting and LES, and what I like to do outside of the lab/work. I asked questions throughout the interviews where it felt more like a conversation than an interview. I am unsure how interviews are at other firms, but in general it is important to be able to clearly and concisely relay difficult research topics in a way someone not in your field would understand. Also, it is important to have good people skills such as being able to effectively communicate with others, and to have emotional intelligence to be able to work well with colleagues and clients.
Can you tell us about your current responsibilities? What is a typical day or week like in your role?
My work varies from day to day, which I enjoy and is something that originally attracted me to patent law - it keeps things interesting! I can work on vastly different inventions daily. For example, I can be working on a food-related invention one day and then a cancer therapy the next (or even in the same day). My general responsibilities as a patent scientist are to prepare Office action responses and patent applications, correspond with clients and outside counsel (e.g., foreign counsel) – under the direction of a supervising attorney or agent, ask attorneys and agents for work to stay busy (at this stage you do not generate your own work and rely on others for work), making sure deadlines are met for the projects I am assigned, and meeting my billable requirement for the year. As a patent scientist we are required to meet a set number of billable hours for the year. However, there are non-billable opportunities that are not required such as business development (e.g., going to conferences, writing articles about patent law, etc.). At any given time, I can have about 10 or more different projects on my docket with deadlines to meet. A “typical” day consists of understanding an invention, either putting that invention in the form of an application or defending an application in response to an Examiner’s rejection (i.e., Office action response; this is similar to responding to reviewers after you submit a manuscript to a journal except there is only one Examiner that reviews the application and responds to arguments made in an Office action response). This equates to a lot of reading and writing. Some days I will get or make multiple phone calls to discuss ongoing projects with my supervisors or to discuss an invention with a client and other days I will be reading and writing all day.
What do you enjoy about your current job and work environment?
I enjoy the variety of science I am exposed to and that it is on the cutting edge. For example, I have worked on COVID-19 related inventions. I really enjoy the work environment at MBF. Everyone is very welcoming and understanding, and wants to help you learn because, based on the experiences of senior patent professionals, the average learning curve is about 5 years. Also, MBF allows for a good work-life balance, but this is dependent on the billable requirement at the firm.
What are some of the challenging aspects of your job? Is there anything you wish you had known about your job or industry before joining?
Billable hours can be challenging because you have to be really efficient and focused. Every moment you are billing, you have to be working. This is very different from being in the lab where you could be momentarily distracted and not worry too much about it. For example, if I billed 8 hours it may mean I actually worked for 10 hours, but the 2 additional hours did not count towards my yearly billable requirement because I was not doing billable work for those 2 hours. Something that was unexpected from my experiences in intellectual property outside of a law firm was that as a Ph.D. you are not at the same level as a novice attorney – to compare to academia, an attorney is like a mentor/P.I. and a patent scientist/novice agent is like a post- doc. The longer you have been in the field, the more independent you can be, such as a senior patent agent - many professionals happily stay as a patent agent. However, to be able to make legal recommendations outside of patent prosecution, a J.D. is needed.
Do you have any professional plans for the future? What are some future career paths that could open up for someone in your position, 5-10 years down the road?
I plan to take the patent bar within the next year to become a patent agent. People typically do not stay a patent scientist in this field for too long. As a patent agent you can move up levels within the firm and eventually become a senior patent agent. To progress further, one would need to go to law school and become an attorney. After getting your J.D. you become an associate (there are different levels of associates based on experience), then contract partner, and then equity partner. If someone does not want to become a partner, they can pursue the senior counsel track.
What activities, internships, or organizations would you recommend someone get involved with to help them break into this field?
I recommend doing a technology transfer internship if you are still in graduate school and the EDGE internship or another law firm internship if you are finished with graduate school. Getting involved with AUTM and LES are great ways to get exposure as well. Some things anyone who is interested can do are: take an intellectual property course, search Google Patents for a technology you are interested in and reading/skimming the U.S. patents/patent applications (this will help with familiarizing yourself with how patents are structured), look up the patents/applications you find on Google Patents and search those on the USPTO’s public PAIR website to see what Office actions and responses are like, and read IP blogs such as IP Law360, Life Sciences Law360, Patent Docs, IP Watchdog, and BITLAW.com. Most importantly, and to reiterate from above, NETWORK!
Is it common for people in your field to have a scientific/academic background (i.e. have PhDs)? Can you think of any advantages or disadvantages someone with a PhD might experience while pursuing or working in your field?
Yes. Most firms have an unwritten requirement that a patent scientist or agent in the life sciences or chemical fields must have a Ph.D. because it is needed to understand complex technologies.
