(330a) From Chemical Engineering to Intellectual Property Law

My name is Paul Townsend, and I am an intellectual property attorney at the law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrettt & Dunner, LLP, in Washington, DC. I didn’t start as an attorney though; I originally went to school in Canada, Queen’s University, for chemical engineering. When people here this, the first question I always get asked is whether I always planned to go to law school after becoming a chemical engineer. And the answer to that is no. I never even considered law school until I was almost done with my engineering degree. So how did I get here? It starts with my work experiences as a chemical engineering student. When I was studying at Queen’s University, I worked in different jobs all three summers. Each job was interesting, but there was never anything that made me really excited about working for those companies. When I realized that those types of jobs were what I would likely be working in, I decided to make a change. That’s when I first learned about patent law, a job where I could apply legal reasoning and my technical background.

After getting my law degree, I got a job at Finnegan Henderson doing intellectual property law. I’ve been working at the law firm for about 6 years now, so I’m still fairly early in my career. Nonetheless, I’ve had a lot of great experiences in those 6 years. My focus over these past years has been in two areas of intellectual property: patents and trade secrets. I imagine most of you know about patents. Those are the government granted protections on something that you invent. Trade secrets are a little less clear, but those always involve some secret that you or your company obtains an economic benefit from. My work at Finnegan has evolved over the 6 years I’ve been here. I’ve had experience meeting with inventors and drafting patents to protect their inventions, implementing intellectual property policies at various companies, providing all sorts of legal advice regarding intellectual property, and litigating all sides of intellectual property disputes in court.

During my presentation, I’ll give you a more detailed description of how I got where I am now. I’ll then provide more detail on what exactly I do at Finnegan and how my role has changed over the years.