The Patent Office’s move to factor where products are made in validity reviews could tilt access to the agency’s administrative tribunal against Big Tech companies without a manufacturing base in the US, Christopher Yasiejko reports.

Reviews by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board will include “the extent to which any products accused of infringement in a parallel proceeding are manufactured in the United States or are related to investments in American manufacturing operations,” PTO Director John Squires said in a memo. Factors will also include whether competing products are made domestically and whether the petitioner is a small business. The memo adds to the discretionary factors the agency can weigh when deciding whether to take up patent reviews that are often sought by companies accused of infringement in lawsuits.

Last week’s memo is part of the Trump administration’s “tech-lash” and its push to reorient US policies toward domestic manufacturing, according to University of Texas law professor Paul R. Gugliuzza. It’s “bad news for companies like Samsung, Google, and Apple, but good news for patent trolls and the third-party funders backing them,” he said. But it’s unrealistic and “absurdly self-aggrandizing” to expect companies to shift manufacturing to gain better odds at launching or defeating a patent review, Gugliuzza said.

Equity partners tend to be the happiest with their jobs at law firms, according to Bloomberg Law’s latest Attorney Workload & Hours Survey of nearly 1,500 attorneys and legal professionals across the country.

Only about 40% of non-equity partners expressed job satisfaction, compared with nearly 60% of their colleagues with ownership stakes. Associates show similar dissatisfaction, with burnout especially high among mid-level associates. Attorneys worked an average of just over 50 hours a week last year, according to our survey respondents.

Some of these feelings may stem from dramatic pay differences. Non-equity partners make about 60% less in total compensation than equity partners, despite working and billing roughly the same number of hours.

“You’re valuable; you do really good work; you take care of these clients really, really well,” said Frank Bernstein, an intellectual property lawyer with Squire Patton Boggs. “But you’re not bringing in business, which is what makes a big difference in terms of compensation.”