Patent Agent, Software

About the Role

Hark is seeking a Patent Agent to build the software side of our patent portfolio from the ground up. This person will own drafting and prosecution across our models, inference systems, and platform software, and will shape how the company decides what to protect as its research moves from experiment to product.

This role sits inside Legal but lives with research and engineering. You will work alongside the people building our foundation models, on-device inference, agentic systems, and product software, finding the inventions before anyone has thought to write them down. Then you will go draft the applications yourself.

Software patents are won or lost on subject-matter eligibility, and the work of getting a claim allowed starts long before the first office action. It starts in the specification, and before that, in understanding the technical problem well enough to say precisely what the invention improves. This is a hands-on opportunity for someone who wants to author that strategy rather than inherit it.

Responsibilities

• Build and execute the patent strategy for Hark's models, inference systems, and platform software, including portfolio architecture across foundation models, on-device deployment, agentic systems, and product software
• Work directly with research scientists, machine learning engineers, and infrastructure, platform, and mobile engineers to identify patentable inventions
• Draft and prosecute U.S. and international applications covering machine learning architectures, training and inference systems, and software platforms, with claim and specification strategy built to withstand subject-matter eligibility challenges under §101
• Prepare office action responses and conduct examiner interviews, including on Alice rejections, and develop prosecution strategies aimed at commercially meaningful claim scope
• Review research publications, technical blog posts, demos, and open source releases ahead of disclosure, managing bar dates and coordinating filings so that publishing does not cost the company coverage
• Advise on patent versus trade secret versus defensive publication, particularly for training methods, data pipelines, and inference optimizations
• Review and improve applications prepared by outside counsel, and work with international counsel on PCT and foreign prosecution strategy, including jurisdictions with stricter standards for computer-implemented inventions
• Conduct patentability and prior art analyses, monitor competitive patent activity, and support freedom-to-operate work ahead of product milestones
• Own inventorship determinations, assignment hygiene, and IDS practice across the portfolio

Requirements

• Registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with an active registration number
• Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or a closely related technical discipline
• 5+ years drafting and prosecuting software patent applications, at a firm, in-house, or both
• Deep working knowledge of §101 subject matter eligibility and a record of getting software claims allowed - you can articulate why a claim recites a technical improvement rather than an abstract idea, and you draft specifications that support that argument from the start
• Experience at an AI, software, or platform company - you know what happens to a filing plan when a research team wants to publish in three weeks
• Comfortable building in ambiguity - you've stood up prosecution processes from scratch, not just inherited them
• Hands-on by default; you're drafting, not just managing outside counsel
• Excellent written communication and exceptional attention to technical detail

Bonus Qualifications

• Prosecution experience in machine learning, neural network architectures, distributed systems, or compiler and runtime optimization
• Experience with patent provisions in open source licenses and with defensive patent arrangements
• Experience managing substantial international portfolios across multiple jurisdictions
• Software engineering or machine learning research experience prior to entering patent practice, or an advanced technical degree

Compensation

The US base salary range for this full-time position is between $150,000 - $220,000 annually.

The pay offered for this position may vary based on several individual factors, including job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package may also include additional components/benefits depending on the specific role. This information will be shared if an employment offer is extended. (edited)