What We Do
South Texas College of Law Houston has two distinct clinics addressing Intellectual Property matters: the Trademark Clinic and the experimental Patent Clinic. Both programs are part of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Pilot Certification Program, which grants law students limited recognition to practice before the Office under faculty supervision.
Students gain experience drafting and filing either patent applications or trademark applications for clinic clients. Further, because they are authorized to practice before the USPTO, students gain experience answering Office Actions and communicating with either patent examiners or trademark examining attorneys for the applications they have filed.
South Texas College of Law Houston is one of only 18 law schools in the country offering both a Trademark and Patent Clinic under this program.
Clinic students hone their skills interviewing, investigating, drafting, and counseling in the context of federal agency practice.
Why We Selected This Clinic
This experimental clinic grew out of a pilot certification program hosted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The law school had been looking for an opportunity to expand its clinical offerings into the transactional arena. A strong student interest in intellectual property and an increasingly deep intellectual property curriculum led to the creation of each clinic.
