---
title: "Patent Agent"
description: "A scientist or engineer registered with the USPTO who drafts and prosecutes patent applications, without needing a law degree."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/patent-agent"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Patent Agent

**Category:** Legal · **SOC code:** 23-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 23-2011.00

A scientist or engineer registered with the USPTO who drafts and prosecutes patent applications, without needing a law degree.

Also advertised as: Registered Patent Agent; Patent Practitioner; Technical Specialist, Patents; Patent Prosecution Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $62,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.24/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,740 to $101,500, with the middle half between $50,340 and $80,080
- **Total US employment:** 392,880
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -0.3% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 40,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 11/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 392,880 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,740 |
| 25th | $50,340 |
| 50th (median) | $62,890 |
| 75th | $80,080 |
| 90th | $101,500 |
| Mean (average) | $69,700 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $89,750 | $81,664 | 6,400 |
| WA | $79,400 | $74,197 | 9,460 |
| CO | $78,190 | $75,874 | 5,620 |
| MA | $77,640 | $73,414 | 7,800 |
| CA | $77,390 | $69,897 | 47,130 |
| MN | $75,570 | $76,627 | 7,400 |
| NJ | $71,500 | $65,714 | 12,010 |
| AK | $68,700 | $67,117 | 570 |
| NY | $68,410 | $63,389 | 34,220 |
| VT | $67,160 | $68,560 | 660 |
| MD | $65,640 | $62,539 | 6,460 |
| NV | $64,680 | $64,694 | 3,620 |
| VA | $63,990 | $63,291 | 10,250 |
| CT | $63,820 | $61,596 | 5,210 |
| IL | $63,670 | $63,697 | 14,130 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/patent-agent/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/patent-agent.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 404,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 403,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 1,100 jobs, or -0.3%. Declining: -0.3% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 40,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 36.9% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 20.1% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 18.6% |
| Doctoral Degree | 10.0% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 9.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.4% |

## What the work involves

- Interview inventors about the technical details of inventions
- Search patents and literature for prior art
- Draft patent applications, claims and drawings descriptions
- Respond to USPTO office actions with arguments and amendments
- Conduct interviews with patent examiners
- Advise on patentability based on search results
- Track filing deadlines and manage a patent portfolio

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Law and Government — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.33 |
| C — Conventional | 5.32 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.18 |
| S — Social | 3.12 |
| A — Artistic | 2.24 |
| R — Realistic | 1.74 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 69.1 |
| ESTJ | 68.5 |
| ENTJ | 66.9 |
| INTJ | 66.6 |
| ISFJ | 60.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ, ENTJ, INTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Paralegal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal) — median $62,890
- [Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $55,570
- [Title Examiner, Abstractor, and Searcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/title-examiner-abstractor-and-searcher) — median $58,650
- [Court Reporter and Simultaneous Captioner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-reporter-and-simultaneous-captioner) — median $72,420
- [Court, Municipal, and License Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-municipal-and-license-clerk) — median $48,700
- [Secretary and Administrative Assistant, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $47,540
- [Executive Secretary and Executive Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/executive-secretary-and-executive-administrative-assistant) — median $76,590
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [Correspondence Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/correspondence-clerk) — median $46,800
- [Office Clerk, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-clerk-general) — median $45,010

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/patent-agent