Month: September 2022

In the world of patent prosecution, no two days are exactly the same. However, there is a cadence to the work. What does a “typical” day look like at Hanley Flight & Zimmerman? Let’s join Patent Engineer Zachary Herbert for a day in his work life.

How It Started

Zachary graduated from Purdue University in May 2022 with his bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering – a strong technical foundation. Additionally, Zachary interned with HFZ for two summers prior to joining full-time, so he was ready to hit the ground running this summer.

How It’s Going

Zachary starts each day reviewing his docket of work to identify high-priority items and plan his day. Depending on the day, he may be in his home or at the HFZ office in downtown Chicago. Like many of his colleagues, Zachary makes the most of a flexible work schedule to choose the best location for the day, depending on the type of task or collaboration needed.

The work of Patent Engineers like Zachary is a vital part of the patent process. They dig into inventions to understand what patent protection may be available. Patent Engineers also provide detailed examples of how to build and use the invention in the patent application itself, working with the inventor to better understand the product or process to develop the specification with alternative approaches.

Throughout the day, Zachary can take on a variety of patent prosecution tasks. He may participate in Patent Examiner interviews with HFZ attorneys or work with inventors to properly explain and define their inventions. His day typically includes writing, be it drafting patent applications with the support of senior patent attorneys; preparing Office Action Responses; or incorporating feedback from other members of the HFZ team on the project. When in the office, Zachary can grab lunch with his teammates or take a walk along the river for a quick break to recharge mid-day.

Where He’s Headed

While Zachary joined HFZ following two successful internships, continuing his career growth is an important part of his job. Zachary has regular meetings with his mentor, Mark Hanley. HFZ’s mentorship program was intentionally crafted to help new patent engineers build relationships, receive meaningful and timely feedback, and make the most of their first year in practice. The supportive environment is part of why Zachary chose to stay with HFZ following his internships.

Like many early-career Patent Engineers, Zachary focuses on his career path after hours as well. He has been applying to law school, which he will start next fall. Attending law school while working can be challenging, so having the mentorship of seasoned professionals that have been through the process is essential.

Off the Clock

While his degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering means Zachary is interested in how things fly, he also enjoys the end product. Zachary is working to obtain his Private Pilot License. Physical activity is another key part of Zachary’s day; he stays active either rock climbing or going for a run. He finds that consistent effort helps him stay focused, energetic and ready for the next challenge.

Mark Zimmerman has a hard time believing that Hanley Flight & Zimmerman is celebrating more than 20 years of service. Today, they’re one of Chicago’s most successful intellectual property law firms. For Zimmerman, it still feels like they opened for business just yesterday.

In a recent conversation, he shared his thoughts on HFZ’s first two decades — and talked about the time he accidentally scored a patent of his own.

Getting a patent is only part of the job. Zimmerman wants to make clients’ IP bulletproof.

HFZ helps clients secure patents for their inventions, but that’s only part of what the team does. The firm also develops strategies for protecting those patents from people who might challenge them later in court.

“You can kind of go through the motions and get someone a patent and pray that it never gets litigated,” Zimmerman said.

“Or you can treat it like it’s an asset. Like we expect it to be litigated one day and treat it like it’s really, really important. Our firm falls into the latter category – we want to issue patents that withstand litigation.”

One of the keys to HFZ’s success? They’re attorneys who can think like engineers.

In fact, more than a few of the firm’s attorneys are former engineers. That includes Zimmerman, who got his start as a design engineer with Motorola.

The team’s know-how makes a huge difference when inventors come in and explain how their technology works. HFZ grasps new ideas quickly.

“I think our technical expertise sets us apart,” Zimmerman said. “Of course, we don’t know all the intricacies of what they’re doing because what they’re doing is new. But we’re able to get into the ballpark pretty fast.”

The happiest man at Motorola inspired Zimmerman to become a patent attorney.

Early on, when he was trying to figure out the next step in his career, Zimmerman talked to senior people in several departments. Of everyone he interviewed, the person who seemed happiest was a patent attorney.

Zimmerman still remembers their talk: “He says, ‘You know what, Mark? I have the best job in this whole company.’ And he tells me the job is meeting with the engineers, learning about the new inventions and getting them protected. And that sounded cool.”

It inspired Zimmerman to go to law school at night, join a law firm specializing in intellectual property — and eventually launch HFZ with Mark Hanley and Jim Flight.

Zimmerman has something in common with clients: He has a patent, too.

HFZ makes a point of going above and beyond for clients, Zimmerman said. But one case stands out.

“I was thinking about a client’s problem before the meeting and thought up a solution. I said, ‘Couldn’t you guys do this?’” he recalled. “The client really liked the invention, so we worked together to patent it. I think that kind of invention only occurs when you are deeply thinking about your client’s business and their problems. It is gratifying to have that kind of relationship and a very enjoyable way to work.”

He’s not just HFZ’s co-founder. He’s the former head of accounts receivable.

When you’re starting a new business, sometimes you have to wear multiple hats. In Zimmerman’s case, he was responsible for accounts receivable while Hanley took point on accounts payable.

“You could tell the two guys who were patent attorneys by day had, by night, done the accounting work,” Zimmerman said.

One milestone for HFZ was when they realized they had enough business to justify hiring an accountant, which was surprisingly early on in the history of the business.

If he wasn’t a lawyer, he’d probably be building things.

Zimmerman grew up in his family’s construction business, Wm. Tonyan & Sons of McHenry, Illinois. “My dad and my uncles owned a business that my cousins run now,” he said. “And so I started working there when I was in the eighth grade. I think now if I weren’t doing this, I would want to be building things.”

That first job taught him lessons that he still uses at HFZ.

“I like making a business work — that kind of thing that you don’t get taught in law school,” he said. “And I think I learned a lot of that from my dad, just watching him run the construction company when I was a kid.”

It’s all about protecting clients’ ideas.

A big part of HFZ’s job is talking with patent examiners, the government officials who decide whether an invention meets the standard for patentability.

“A lot of times it gets down to talking on the phone with the examiners, explaining who your client is, what they’re bringing to the table and letting the examiners understand that the inventor is a real person that solved a real problem,” Zimmerman said.

“And that’s what we’re trying to protect. We’re trying to protect what our inventors brought to the table.”

When it comes to the traditional law firm onboarding process, one recent tweet sums up a far too common scenario:

As evidenced by nearly 1,000 likes, the author describes a feeling of loneliness and confusion that is familiar to many. Indeed, the American Bar Association shared one survey in which 88 percent of associates said the right mentor was essential for career development….but only 27 percent said one was available to them.

Lack of mentorships is one problem; the success of mentorships is another. In a survey by Major, Lindsey & Africa, less than one-third – 29 percent – of associate lawyers said mentors made a significant difference.

Looking to address both of these concerns, Chicago’s Hanley Flight & Zimmerman (HFZ) created a mentorship program designed to build quality relationships and provide real-time feedback, both quantitative and qualitative, to help new lawyers and patent engineers make the most of their first year in practice.

The fundamentals of the program:

• Every new hire is assigned a mentor. Mentors are HFZ’s capital members, experienced lawyers or experienced patent agents.
• Mentors and mentees meet frequently. This frequency means that if a problem does surface, it is addressed early – and the practitioner has sufficient time to course-correct.
• Once a month, mentors review the mentees’ key performance indicators (KPIs), reports that show quantitative measures such as efficiency, on-time delivery and billable hours.
• Mentors also share qualitative feedback. Through the firm intranet, HFZ colleagues can share praise or advice on an ongoing basis; this is collected by the mentors and shared with the mentees monthly as well.

“Together, the KPIs and the feedback drive their conversations so they talk about things that matter,” said Founding Member Mark Zimmerman. “Here’s how you are performing on paper, and here’s what people are saying.”

In addition to providing meaningful structure to the mentor-mentee meetings, Zimmerman said the format prevents any shocking revelations at year-end evaluations.

“It makes the end-of-year review like getting a report card,” he said. “You know the grades you have earned throughout the class. There are no surprises.”

It’s a vastly different approach to what he and the other firm founders endured as associates, Zimmerman said.

“We didn’t receive hours reports, we didn’t receive efficiency reports, and no one was assigned to us,” he said. “Some people had the mentors they needed, but some didn’t.”

By creating formal mentor-mentee pairs – and providing them a helpful structure – the HFZ program has proven to benefit more than just the new hires.

“It helps the mentors remember what it was like to be at that stage, to remember the demands on these people, and to adjust expectations,”  he said. “It also benefits the entire firm to have people truly invested in these people’s success – it makes a more pleasant sandbox.”

Over the long run, it helps clients too, he said: “Any time we have people with the firm doing the work in a way that delivers consistency and quality, it benefits our clients.”