Seminar Topic: You Never Know: How I went from ECE Student to Patent Attorney

Abstract of Talk: When I was at Tech, I took this same Seminar. We had many great speakers, from financial planners, to engineers, to entrepreneurs. One particularly interesting speaker was Gene Zimmer, a patent attorney with the Atlanta firm, Jones and Askew. He spoke about practicing law as a patent attorney, patent laws, rules, and the requirements necessary to patent inventions, and generally about being an attorney with an engineering undergraduate degree. It all sounded appealing, but I never thought I would have the opportunity to attend law school, much less become a patent attorney. Yet, here I am, because you just never know. I plan to share why that is true in my case, how I went from being an ECE student to becoming a patent attorney, and about life as an attorney. However, I am happy to talk about anything else, be it law school, intellectual property law, transitioning from engineering to law, or other topics, so please ask lots of questions.  

Biographical Sketch of the Speaker: Philip Burrus has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (’93) and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (’95) from Georgia Tech, a Master of Business Administration (’02) and Juris Doctor (’02) from Emory University, and a Master of Agriculture (’16) from Auburn University. Prior to starting the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group, he worked as a Patent Attorney for Motorola, Inc. Prior to law school he worked as an Electrical Engineer for Motorola, Inc. and a Design Engineer for Schlumberger Limited. He has served as Chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Georgia Bar and is also a certified sommelier.