TJSL Supervising Attorneys Attend PTO Seminar

April 13, 2018

Each year, the PTO holds a seminar where supervising attorneys in the clinics and students gather at the Alexandria, VA, PTO office just outside of Washington, DC. This year’s seminar was attended by current TJSL supervising attorneys JD Cowart (patent clinic) and Joanna Tsai (trademark clinic) as well as the school’s former patent clinic supervisor Mimi Afshar, who now supervises the patent clinic at the North Carolina Central University School of Law.

Thomas Jefferson School of Law is the only California law school south of LA and one of only three in California to operate both patent and trademark clinics certified by the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“PTO”). These clinics operate like law firms at the law school. A supervising attorney functions as a “partner” and students work as “associates” with their own limited practice numbers representing real clients filing applications for patents and trademarks with the PTO. For the past four summers, the law school has also placed one and often more students in the PTO’s summer internship program where they have worked as patent and trademark examiners.