Patent Attorney

Arm is a complex and dynamic semiconductor and AI technology business with a portfolio of over 12,000 active patents and applications covering a broad range of CPU, GPU, AI, semiconductor and software technologies. This is an exciting time to join and help shape how innovation is protected within our business.

Job Overview:

Our in-house IP team builds and curates Arm’s global patent portfolio and supports the protection of innovation throughout our business. As Arm continues to invest in IP protection across both established and emerging technology areas, we are expanding our Patents team to add drafting and prosecution capability.

This is a new type of role for Arm. While our existing patent attorneys are involved across the breadth of portfolio development and management, this position is being created with hands-on patent drafting and prosecution as a primary activity, helping to build our in-house capability.

The role is particularly suited to a patent attorney who genuinely enjoys the craft of drafting and prosecution and wants that to remain a significant part of their day-to-day work. You will have the opportunity to work on technically challenging inventions at the leading edge of Arm’s business without needing to move away from hands-on patent work to develop your in-house career.

Responsibilities:

You will work directly with inventors and engineering teams across Arm to understand new technologies, help identify and capture inventions, and draft patent applications covering innovations in areas including microelectronics, semiconductor technology, computer architecture, software and artificial intelligence. You will also take direct responsibility for the prosecution of your filings before the UKIPO, EPO and other patent offices, while continuing to work alongside and direct our network of external patent counsel where appropriate.

Because this is a new capability for Arm, you could help shape it from the outset. Rather than joining a mature process and simply working through an established caseload, you will be the start of an effective in-house drafting and prosecution function, develop prosecution workflows, explore how we better engage with inventors for our own drafts, and help to develop our use of AI to work more effectively.

We are not looking simply to recreate an external patent attorney firm within Arm. We want to develop an in-house model that takes advantage of being embedded within the business, with closer access to inventors, greater insight into our technologies and strategy, and the ability to make prosecution decisions in the context of the wider portfolio and Arm’s commercial objectives.

For someone coming from private practice, this offers a relatively unusual proposition: the opportunity to continue doing the drafting and prosecution work you enjoy, while helping to kickstart a new in-house capability around it. There are no client billing requirements, billable-hour targets or pressure to generate work, but there will be expectations set around drafting and prosecution output which are intended to ensure an appropriate and sustainable level of delivery and to demonstrate the value of this role, rather than recreate a private-practice billing environment.

Being embedded within Arm also means having much greater context around the inventions you protect. You will build relationships with inventors and technical teams, understand the technologies and products being developed, and see how individual inventions fit within Arm’s wider technology, commercial and patent strategies. The objective is not simply to draft and prosecution file on any idea, but to help identify, capture and prepare cases to build a strategically relevant portfolio for the business.

Although drafting and prosecution will be the primary focus of the role, you will remain part of the wider in-house IP team and participate in broader portfolio activities where appropriate. Depending on your interests and experience, there may also be opportunities over time to become involved in areas such as invention harvesting, portfolio strategy, competitive intelligence, standards, open-source software, patent analytics, IP data and reporting, and projects to improve the systems through which we manage and use our IP.

Required Skills and Experience:

• This role may suit a finals-level / a few years qualified CPA and/or EPA qualified patent attorney. Alternatively, you may be someone who wants to take a step back from management or business development to return to a role focussed on drafting and prosecution work.
• A background in electronics, physics or computer science or proven experience working or prosecuting patent portfolios in such an area.
• A university degree in Electronics, Computer Science, Physics or a related subject is preferred, although other qualifications will be considered if suitable technical knowledge can be shown.

In Return:

This is an opportunity to remain a hands-on patent attorney working with cutting-edge compute, semiconductor, software and AI inventions and help Arm to deliver more of its drafting and prosecution work in-house.

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Accommodations at Arm

At Arm, we want to build extraordinary teams. If you need an adjustment or an accommodation during the recruitment process, please email accommodations@arm.com. To note, by sending us the requested information, you consent to its use by Arm to arrange for appropriate accommodations. All accommodation or adjustment requests will be treated with confidentiality, and information concerning these requests will only be disclosed as necessary to provide the accommodation. Although this is not an exhaustive list, examples of support include breaks between interviews, having documents read aloud, or office accessibility. Please email us about anything we can do to accommodate you during the recruitment process.

Hybrid Working at Arm

Arm’s approach to hybrid working is designed to create a working environment that supports both high performance and personal wellbeing. We believe in bringing people together face to face to enable us to work at pace, whilst recognizing the value of flexibility. Within that framework, we empower groups/teams to determine their own hybrid working patterns, depending on the work and the team’s needs. Details of what this means for each role will be shared upon application. In some cases, the flexibility we can offer is limited by local legal, regulatory, tax, or other considerations, and where this is the case, we will collaborate with you to find the best solution. Please talk to us to find out more about what this could look like for you.

Equal Opportunities at Arm

Arm is an equal opportunity employer, committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal opportunities are available to all applicants and colleagues. We are a diverse organization of dedicated and innovative individuals, and don’t discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.