Patent Formalities Officer

To provide a high quality, timely and comprehensive patent formalities service for HGF clients, supporting the fee earning teams. This is an important role in a busy and highly valued patent formalities team.

• Provide an administration service for the filing and prosecuting of local national, International (PCT), European and other national patent countries.
• Ensure patent and patent application deadlines are met with 100% levels of accuracy.
• Ensure the legal and fee requirements of each application are met according to the requirements of the relevant country.
• Progress actions required of shareholders and attorneys to meet the required deadlines.
• Forward maintenance and renewal of all patents to our renewals team.
• Prepare, execute and, where appropriate, organise the notarisation and legalisation of the locally required documentation required to support the filing or registration of patents.
• Arrange for timely filing of documentation, either directly with relevant national authorities or indirectly by instruction of a local attorney, to maintain valuable intellectual property rights.
• Maintain the computerised record system for patents and patent applications.
• Continually track the status of cases and maintain a due date diary system so deadlines are met efficiently and accurately.
• Liaise with shareholders and attorneys to ensure actions assigned to them are progressed within the required timescales.
• Maintain a good understanding of patent law in the range of countries in which we regularly file patents; and a high level of specialised knowledge relating to patent formalities and their associated administration, in order to provide a professional service to clients.
• Produce correspondence and communications for clients and patent authorities using standard templates and emails.
• To help develop practices and procedures within the guidelines established by the attorneys to improve the efficiency of the service.

Candidate Essential Experience, Qualifications and Skills:

• Demonstrable previous experience of the full range of patent formalities procedures and filing administration requirements for the local national, European, PCT and other countries.
• High levels of accuracy and attention to detail under time pressures.
• Ability to use own judgement to process clients’ applications appropriately.
• Highly efficient and organised in approach to work.
• Able to quickly and effectively prioritise workload daily.
• Excellent awareness of timescales, able to work consistently and calmly within tight deadlines.
• Good at building rapport with attorneys in order to influence their actions required for applications within timescales.
• Must be a team player, willing to work co-operatively with, and support, team members.
• Proactive enough to resolve problems on own initiative and improve processes.
• Confident with MS Word and Excel, able to quickly pick up internal systems.

Desirable Experience/Qualifications:

• Relevant regional certificate in patent formalities and administration.

About HGF:

HGF Limited is one of Europe’s largest intellectual property specialist firms offering a fully integrated IP solution, bringing over 200 Patent Attorneys, Trade Mark Attorneys and IP Solicitors together to provide a full-service IP solution.

With 25 offices across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland & Austria, HGF’s Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys provide specialist technical and legal advice to blue chip organisations and small to medium businesses across the world. Many of our clients are household names and the work HGF does allows them to protect and exploit their inventions, new products and branding.

Why move to HGF?

• HGF takes a transparent and merit-based approach to your career development and you will have the opportunity to shape your long-term progression.
• We’re a firm with a focus on DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion), with a staff led DEI Focus Group, affinity networks and a DEI Board sponsor
• As a business we have a dedicated Learning and Development team focused on career long development of your skills along with a digital learning platform covering a wide range of content
• Benefits including 27 days holiday, bonus scheme and flexible working

HGF Values

People - People matter. We treat people fairly, with respect and compassion. We foster a friendly, inclusive and enjoyable culture for everyone to prosper in. We invest in our people and offer appropriate coaching and training to assist with development and learning. We promote a healthy work-life balance. Progression is based on merit.

Excellence – We strive to be the best. We pursue excellence in all our individual roles resulting in outstanding legal and technical advice for our clients. Our people are pragmatic, responsive and commercially minded. We do not presume but listen to understand so we can engage proactively and appropriately.

Teamwork – We stand together. We work with our clients to protect their interests, and with each other as a mutually supporting firm. We value, appreciate and listen to others, regardless of role, recognising each individual’s particular blend of talent, skill and experience. We are individually and jointly accountable and take responsibility for our actions and decisions.

Progressive – We innovate. We continually improve our services and processes through understanding, creativity, and investment. We evolve by taking opportunities and adopting new business procedures, unencumbered by historical structures or out-of-date attitudes. As a firm, we have an entrepreneurial spirit, and encourage new thinking in our people.