Patent Agent, Hardware - Strategy, Drafting & Prosecution

Hark; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Hark is seeking a Patent Agent to build the hardware side of its patent portfolio from the ground up. You will own invention harvesting, drafting, and prosecution across hardware technologies, shaping what to protect as products move from architecture to prototype to production.

You'll work inside Legal but alongside engineering, collaborating with electrical, mechanical, systems, firmware, wireless, sensor, and product design teams to identify patentable inventions and draft comprehensive U.S.

Qualifications

• Registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
• 5+ years drafting and prosecuting patent applications involving complex hardware technologies.
• Experience at consumer electronics, hardware, semiconductor, wearable, mobile device, or AI hardware company.
• Ability to turn engineer disclosures into complete patent applications, with claims and figures.
• Strong command of electrical, mechanical, and systems-level engineering concepts; ability to push for detail.
• Comfortable building prosecution processes in ambiguity; not just inheriting them.
• Hands-on by default; drafting, not only managing outside counsel.
• Excellent written communication and exceptional attention to technical detail.

Responsibilities

• Build and execute the patent strategy for Hark's hardware products and platform technologies, including portfolio architecture across core, platform, and product-specific innovations.
• Draft and prosecute U.S. and international applications covering hardware and hardware-software systems, translating complex engineering into broad, technically accurate claims.
• Prepare office action responses, conduct examiner interviews, and develop prosecution strategies for commercially meaningful claim scope.
• Manage continuation, divisional, and design patent strategy as products and architectures evolve.
• Review and improve applications prepared by outside counsel, and coordinate with international counsel on PCT and foreign prosecution strategy.
• Conduct patentability and prior art analyses, monitor competitive patent activity, and support freedom-to-operate work ahead of milestones.
• Own inventorship determinations, assignment hygiene, and IDS practice across the portfolio.

Skills

Written communication

Attention to detail

Electrical engineering concepts

Mechanical engineering concepts

Systems engineering concepts

Drafting patent disclosures

Education

Electrical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Computer engineering

Physics

Job description

Hark is seeking a Patent Agent to build the hardware side of its patent portfolio from the ground up. You will own invention harvesting, drafting, and prosecution across hardware technologies, shaping what to protect as products move from architecture to prototype to production.

You'll work inside Legal but alongside engineering, collaborating with electrical, mechanical, systems, firmware, wireless, sensor, and product design teams to identify patentable inventions and draft comprehensive U.S.