Intellectual Property Law

IPR professionals should have both soft and technical skills including:

Soft Skills

1. Good understanding of laws and their implications
2. Excellent negotiation skills
3. Good at keeping an eye on competitor's strategy
4. Good at relationship-building with clients, media, press, and PR agents
5. Decision-making skills
6. Analytical skills
7. Precise attention to detail
8. Ability to perform a lot of research and draw conclusions
9. Experience in conducting due diligence
10. Research skills

Technical Skills:

1. Experience in legal and technical writing
2. Detailed knowledge of IP protection laws
3. Knowledge of drafting patent applications
4. Expertise in using tools like Questel similar patent search tools, Questel inventor portal, Orbit prior art search tool, etc.
5. Experience in the maintenance and generation of research & technical reports
6. Ability to draft assignment's licensing and agreements
7. Skilled in creating valuation of intellectual property
8. Knowledge and experience in handling infringement and misappropriation cases
9. Basic knowledge of taxation and accounting esp. the ones related to IP
10. Expertise in maximizing royalty amounts
11. Requisite knowledge of handling pre-grant and post-grant opposition 
12. Ability to safeguard client's business by obtaining legal injunctions
13. Knowledge of international laws and systems
14. Good knowledge of mortgaging and pledging
15. Portfolio management skills

In India and globally, IPR as a career is very popular and that is one of the reasons many lawyers go for a specialisation in intellectual property rights and practice in prosecuting patent law, IP litigations, copyrights, trademarks, etc.

Some of the benefits of starting a career in IPR are listed below:

1. Almost all businesses are now conscious about IPR and hire IPR lawyers to help them with procedures and legalities. Thus, the demand for IPR lawyers will eternally boom.
2. The growth of the industry is promising thus, businesses seek for lawyers who are highly skilled in practicing IPR laws, hence they pay handsome packages to IPR engineers and lawyers.
3. Several fortune 500 companies and other well-known brands like Google, Facebook, Ranbaxy, etc. have their internal team of researchers who are working on constant innovations. Also, they have their own IPR cells which unlock several job opportunities for experts in reputable brands.
4. IPR professionals who get a chance to work for MNCs like IBM or Dr. Reddy's Laboratories get an opportunity to handle international projects as well. 
5. An individual who has the right qualifications in IPR can choose to work in his or her core area of interest.
6. It is easy for individuals to follow a career in IPR. Candidates with technical degrees can take up IPR certification and courses, and move to work as an IPR professional.
7. Government of almost every country encourages companies to go for intellectual rights. Like in India, the government is encouraging startups to go for IPR by sponsoring registration fees of their IP. All these activities have multiplied the number of total registrations in the last 5 years. This has also boosted many infringement IP cases, which have indirectly boosted the requirement of IPR experts resulting in more employment possibilities.