US Patent Attorney — Prosecution & Litigation

Mercor; United States; Remote; USD 152,000 - 172,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor partners with a leading AI lab to evaluate frontier models on high-quality patent reasoning data. We hire US patent attorneys with prosecution and/or litigation experience to review model-generated patent materials, judge quality, and annotate legal, technical, factual, and citation errors directly in the documents.

The role is an hourly engagement (~20 hours/week) open to candidates in the United States, with immediate start.

Qualifications

• Admitted to practice in at least one US state (active bar).
• 3+ years of US patent practice – prosecution and/or patent litigation.
• For prosecution work: registered to practice before the USPTO (patent bar, registration number).
• Hold a technical or scientific degree (engineering, computer science, life sciences, chemistry, physics or similar).
• Hold a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school.
• Write clearly and pay close attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Review patent-related outputs and assess quality against defined dimensions.
• Annotate inline, flagging legal, technical, factual, claim-construction and citation errors.
• Provide clear, well-reasoned explanations for each judgment.
• Complete all assigned reviews within the review window.
• Attend a short onboarding session before kickoff.

Skills

US patent practice

Prosecution experience

Litigation experience

Bar admission

Education

J.D. from ABA-accredited law school

Technical or scientific degree

Job description

Pay: $110 – $125/hour
Commitment: Hourly, ~20 h/week
Open to: USA

About the Role

Mercor is partnering with a leading AI lab to train frontier models on high-quality legal reasoning data. We're hiring US patent attorneys with prosecution and/or litigation experience for a focused evaluation project. You'll review model-generated work product on patent matters, judge its quality, and mark legal, technical, factual and citation errors directly in the materials.

What You'll Do

• Review patent-related outputs (prosecution and/or litigation work product) and assess their quality against defined dimensions
• Annotate inline, flagging legal, technical, factual, claim-construction and citation errors
• Provide clear, well-reasoned explanations for each judgment
• Complete all assigned reviews within the review window
• Attend a short onboarding session before kickoff

You're a Good Fit If You

• Are admitted to practice in at least one US state (active bar membership)
• Have 3+ years of US patent practice — patent prosecution (drafting/prosecuting applications before the USPTO) and/or patent litigation (infringement, validity, claim construction)
• For prosecution work: are registered to practice before the USPTO (patent bar, registration number)
• Hold a technical or scientific degree (engineering, computer science, life sciences, chemistry, physics or similar)
• Hold a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school
• Write clearly and pay close attention to detail

Bonus Qualifications

• USPTO registration number (patent bar)
• Experience at an AmLaw 100 firm or a leading patent boutique
• Federal Circuit or district-court patent clerkship
• Prior data annotation, AI evaluation or legal-benchmark experience, including prior legal AI projects with Mercor

Role Highlights

• Time commitment: approximately 12–15 hours total, within a defined review window
• Immediately required
• You must complete all required reviews, as the project design depends on every attorney finishing the full set