Intellectual Property Associate

Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, P.C. seeks an Intellectual Property Associate with three to six years of experience to join its growing Intellectual Property Practice Group, which serves clients across a broad range of technologies, including manufacturing, healthcare, and emerging AI-adjacent industries. The successful candidate may be resident in either the Memphis or Nashville office. This is a full-spectrum position spanning prosecution, litigation, and counseling, and it offers the successful candidate meaningful ownership of matters and direct client contact from the outset. On the prosecution side, the associate will work before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and foreign patent offices — interviewing inventors and evaluating invention disclosures, conducting patentability and prior art searches, preparing written assessments of the prospects for protection, drafting and filing U.S. and foreign applications, coordinating foreign filings with associates abroad, and developing arguments for patentability through office action responses, examiner interviews, and appeal briefs. Strong patent litigation skills and experience are required. The associate will actively participate on patent litigation teams with other patent litigators in federal courts and before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with responsibilities that include briefing, motion practice, discovery, infringement and validity analyses, claim charts, and claim construction. The associate will also support trademark, trade secret, and copyright litigation in courts and before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The associate will handle freedom-to-operate and portfolio counseling, clearance and opinion work, and intellectual property due diligence for mergers, acquisitions, and licensing transactions. Candidates must be registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and hold a degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or physics, or a comparable technical background. Ideal candidates will have superior academic credentials, very strong writing and oral communication skills, a strong work ethic, and the creativity, maturity, and attention to detail to work effectively with business leaders, attorneys, scientists, engineers, inventors, and patent examiners. A Tennessee law license is required, or the ability to sit for the Tennessee Bar and obtain licensure promptly.