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Shannon Thomas was working on her PhD in organic chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, when she came across a trade publication advertisement for a patent agent. "They wanted someone with good communication skills and technical expertise to assist and be a liaison with lawyers," she says. "It sparked my interest. I had no idea that kind of job existed."
So during her final year of graduate school in 2002, Thomas took a course to prepare for the patent bar exam. She was hooked. "The more I learned, the more I thought this was cool stuff," she says. With her PhD under her belt, she passed the exam and now works as a patent agent at Morrison & Foerster in Palo Alto, Calif. This month she's back in school, taking evening law classes at Santa Clara University. "When I started as an agent I didn't envision ...
