Patent Agent, Hardware
Hark
$150,000 - $220,000 / year
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Description
About Hark
Hark is an artificial intelligence company building advanced, personalized intelligence. One that is proactive, multimodal, and capable of interacting with the world through speech, text, vision, and persistent memory.
We're pairing that intelligence with next-generation hardware to create a universal interface between humans and machines. While today's AI largely operates through chat boxes and decade-old devices, Hark is focused on what comes next: agentic systems that interact naturally with people and the real world.
To get there, we're developing multimodal models and next-generation AI hardware together - designed from the ground up as a single, unified interface for a new era of intelligent systems.
About the Role
Hark is seeking a Patent Agent to build the hardware side of our patent portfolio from the ground up. This person will own invention harvesting, drafting, and prosecution across our hardware technologies, and will shape how the company decides what to protect as its products move from architecture to prototype to production.
This role sits inside Legal but lives with engineering. You will be in design reviews and prototype reviews, sitting with electrical, mechanical, systems, firmware, and product design engineers, finding the inventions before anyone has thought to write them down. Then you will go draft the applications yourself.
A strong portfolio is not measured by the number of patents filed. It requires knowing which technologies will matter most, anticipating how products and competitors will evolve, and obtaining claims that protect the underlying innovation rather than one implementation of it. 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 hardware products and platform technologies, including portfolio architecture across core, platform, and product-specific innovations
- Work directly with electrical, mechanical, systems, firmware, wireless, sensor, and product design engineers to identify patentable inventions
- Draft and prosecute U.S. and international applications covering hardware and hardware-software systems, translating complex engineering into technically accurate and strategically broad claims
- Prepare office action responses, conduct examiner interviews, and develop prosecution strategies aimed at 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 work 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 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 electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, physics, or a closely related technical discipline
- 5+ years drafting and prosecuting patent applications involving complex hardware technologies, at a firm, in-house, or both
- Experience at a consumer electronics, hardware, semiconductor, wearable, mobile device, or AI hardware company — you know what happens to a patent strategy when an architecture changes late in a build
- You can take an engineer's half-formed disclosure and turn it into a complete application, claims and figures included, without supervision
- Strong command of electrical, mechanical, and systems-level engineering concepts, and the confidence to push an inventor on the details
- 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
- Design patent practice for consumer products, and coordination between utility and design filings
- Experience managing substantial international portfolios across multiple jurisdictions
- Competitive patent landscaping and freedom-to-operate analysis
- Engineering 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)
About this role
Hark is building the patent portfolio for its hardware from scratch, and they're looking for a Patent Agent who can own that strategy end-to-end. You'd work embedded with engineering teams—electrical, mechanical, firmware, systems—attending design and prototype reviews to spot inventions before they're formally documented. The role requires you to draft and prosecute applications yourself, not just manage outside counsel, translating complex hardware and hardware-software systems into strategically broad claims that protect the underlying innovation rather than a single implementation.
This is a hands-on position suited to someone with 5+ years of hardware patent experience and a technical background in electrical or mechanical engineering. You need USPTO registration, the ability to take a half-formed engineer disclosure and turn it into a complete application independently, and the judgment to anticipate how products and competitors will evolve. Prior experience at a consumer electronics, hardware, semiconductor, or AI hardware company is essential—you'll need to understand what happens to patent strategy when architecture changes late in development.
The role sits in Legal but operates alongside engineering. You'll manage prosecution strategy, office action responses, and examiner interviews; handle continuation and design patent strategy as products mature; and oversee inventorship, assignment, and IDS practice across the portfolio. If you've built patent processes from the ground up rather than inherited them, and you're comfortable working in ambiguity while maintaining exceptional technical precision, this offers the opportunity to shape how a hardware-focused AI company protects its core innovations. The position is full-time, in-office in San Jose, with a salary range of $150,000–$220,000.
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Pay for this role
$150,000 to $220,000 per year
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