Pros
Decent benefits: Company has come a long way to make sure employees are getting good healthcare, dental, vision coverage. Also have a 401K plan with company match. There are some other, less important benefits, like discounts and things like that. Decent salary for analysts: Analysts were paid a base, plus commission per completed case. However, there was also a minimum number of cases that should be completed each month, which basically amounted to the same dollar amount per case. If you are a quick learner and know how to identify and separate what is important from all the excess, you will excel at this job. The job requires a pretty good grip of the English language, since most of the job is interpreting claim language and translating that to performing a good prior art search. If you can think creatively and “outside the box” you will probably excel at this job. Being teachable is also important. Some people go into this job thinking it will be easy, or that they already know everything, or even that the job is beneath them. So when things don’t work out for them they assume it was because of GPS or their manager, when in reality it was just themselves. Some analysts made as much as $8,000 per month, while others struggled to bring in $2,500. Chances are that any bad reviews were made by people who just couldn’t do the job. Decent salary for upper management: The upper management never seemed to have anything bad to say about what they were getting paid. This is because GPS is in Arizona, so this would be compared to the rest of the IP market in Arizona, which is typically much lower than most other places in the U.S. Upper management salary compared to what a patent attorney makes would be a far more dismal comparison. Decent training programs to help analysts develop: New hires get a two week paid trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, to learn the ins and outs of the job. There are also weekly trainings to continue developing skillsets in various work related tasks. Flexible work atmosphere: The company lets you work from pretty much anywhere within the continental United States. This is great for those who want to live where they already lived. My work of caution is that those who work remotely will find the communication barrier to be much higher than if you work in the office. This is critical for those who are just starting out because in the beginning you will need all the help you can get to learn the job quickly and start making the bigger salary. The two week introductory training will not be enough to be able to do the job well, so if you go remote after that, know that the chances of you excelling are drastically reduced. I recommend staying for at least the first year before working remotely from your desired locale. Lots of friendly coworkers: Everyone at GPS is pretty friendly. When it comes to getting the work done, however, everyone in management is different, so some will be nicer about it than others. What I will say about management is that they want the work to get done and they want the analysts to perform. Most managers (I knew most of them personally, and was friendly with all of them) also genuinely want to develop their analysts for their analysts sake (i.e., for their good). However, what I noticed was that some people don’t take constructive criticism very well (see my comments above about people who think they know everything). Getting back to the general friendliness of everyone, I have to say that this was probably one of the best things about GPS, and it’s not because of GPS as much as it was because of the employees. Periodic company paid events: The company hosted events for all local employees and any remote employees that wanted to come to town for the event. This was typically 3 or 4 times a year, and also there was a big end of the year dinner event in December. They ranged from golfing, to ball games, to going to the raceway. It was always good times, and they paid for everything. In fact, spouses and significant others were also welcome on the company’s dime.
Cons
Poor salary for lower management: Between the analysts and the upper management there was this interim layer of management that was also on salary. The problem was that more than any other job at GPS, this layer of management was the ones who were over utilized and under paid. In many cases, these people (I was one of them) were paid less than the good analysts, but performed substantially more work than any analysts. It was like a pie-eating contests where the reward for eating your pie the fastest was more pie. The people getting promoted into these positions were the analysts who excelled, so generally this meant a pay cut over what you could have made under the commission structure. In addition, you had a lot more responsibility for the quality expectations, but no stake in the company actually hitting its quality goal (as was the case with upper management who got an annual bonus if quality levels were hit). So, I guess if you never make it this far, you may not need to worry about this problem. Probably great salary if you are an owner: Of course, I wouldn’t know, but they both drove around pretty nice cars, so I have to assume they made a hell of a lot more money than me or anyone else that worked there. Also, they went on vacation a lot, sometimes on the company dime, under the guise of a “trade show” or “conference” of some sort. And then there were the frequent half days when at least one of them was not to be found. Perhaps this may not bother you, but if you are an analyst you don’t really get “vacation”, since you are paid on a commission. If you stop working, you stop making money. For those who were scratching by, this was nearly an impossibility. Minimal opportunity for growth within the company: My ultimate reason for leaving the company was not because of any dissatisfaction with the people or the work, rather, it was because it became apparent to me that there wasn’t any real growth potential in the company. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that it is a great stepping stone to get fantastic hands-on experience in the IP field. The reason I believe there is not long term growth potential is because it is still a small company, and there are only a limited number of positions at the top. Further, the management and the owners (who are the real decision making power) don’t have a lot of business management experience or IP experience beyond prior art searching, so they (the owners) have a general and apparently insurmountable fear of expanding into markets that go beyond searching. As much as I don’t mind searching, I want a little more out of my career, but if you don’t, then maybe this wouldn’t bother you. Very little diversity in the type of work performed: As I just mentioned, there really is only searching and writing search reports at GPS. There isn’t really anything else, and I speculate as to whether there will ever be anything else.