Life After MIPLC

MIPLC graduates enjoy excellent career opportunities. Our ambitious degree program is extremely attractive to a wide variety of employers, who appreciate the fact that our program teaches applicable skills and focuses on problem-oriented learning and case studies. They highly value our program's training components in litigation and negotiation skills and are aware of the intercultural and interdisciplinary skills training that students receive thanks to their living at close quarters with one another on the student office floor. Our students form world-spanning friendships and professional networks to last a lifetime from which employers also seek to benefit.

Our graduates have obtained outstanding positions in the IP world. They have gone on to work for IP institutions such as various national Patent and Trademark Offices, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre, or OHIM; for national and international (patent) law firms; for government ministries; for NGOs, think tanks and similar organizations; or for the IP departments of large corporations in the private sector. Others have obtained Ph.D. degrees from the MIPLC or other top-rated universities to pursue academic careers.

The MIPLC team will be happy to provide career development support and coaching services to the MIPLC students. This includes a Career Information Session, an Internship Information Session, application workshops, support for organizing an internship, and personal consultation with regard to optimizing cover letters and CVs as well as job-search strategies. The MIPLC regularly receives high-caliber job offers from renowned (patent) law firms, corporations, IP institutions, and universities, which the team will gladly pass on to students and graduates.

All through the academic year, students at the MIPLC enjoy a host of opportunities to interact with high-level representatives of (patent) law firms, corporations, IP institutions, and academia. These opportunities present themselves in the classroom, where world-renowned lecturers who actually shape IP law on a daily basis teach MIPLC students, at the bi-monthly MIPLC Lecture Series, at various study visits to institutions like the European Patent Office and to corporations like BMW, during various functions at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MPI) to which MIPLC students are invited, at meetings with some of the researchers at the MPI, at the annual Alumni Conference in mid-November, at the Graduation Ceremony for the previous class, at a regular alumni get-together ("Alumni-Stammtisch"), etc. All these contacts will be an invaluable asset when it comes to organizing an internship (see below) and/ or finding a job.

The members of the MIPLC Project Board as well as the faculty members are more than happy to help qualified graduates in their job search, whether by issuing letters of recommendation or by establishing direct contacts with potential employers.

Furthermore, MIPLC students have full access to the extensive Career Services of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and of the Center for Professional Development and Career Strategy office of The George Washington University Law School.

MIPLC students may complete an optional internship, usually between mid-September (submission of the Master's thesis) and mid-November (graduation ceremony). The MIPLC has an extensive network of potential internship sponsors including (patent) law firms, corporations, IP institutions, and others, and will support the organization of an internship for interested students. Moreover, the MIPLC is part of the Pan-European Seal Training Program (see below) by which a few MIPLC students every year are selected for one-year, paid internships at the European Patent Office (EPO) or at the Europan Union Intellectual Property Offic (EUIPO). The internship is an excellent opportunity to apply the newly gained knowledge to "real-life" IP and to develop additional research, writing, interviewing, and counseling skills. Moreover, a sizeable number of the MIPLC graduates has been hired by their internship sponsors after the completion of their studies.

Both the EUIPO Academy Learning Portal and the EPO online training portal offer a wealth of online courses which our students can use to complement the knowledge gained in the MIPLC class room. Please remember to register as "member of the Pan-European Seal" on the websites below before accessing the learning material.

EUIPO Academy Learning Portal

EPO online training portal

The MIPLC, as a member of the Pan-European Seal training program, every year shortlists five successful students each for a one-year, paid traineeship at the EUIPO and the EPO. Please note that a student can only be shortlisted for a traineeship at one of the institutions, not for both.

The EUIPO and the EPO will select future trainees from the shortlists we provide to them according to their interests, capacities, and needs. For more information, please refer to the web site of the Pan-European Seal training program.

MIPLC graduates who would like to study for a Ph.D. have the following "in-house" options:

• The MIPLC offers Ph.D. scholarships to a strictly limited number of MIPLC graduates each year. Interested students will be requested to submit research proposals during the academic year.
• Ph.D. scholarships are also available at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.

In addition, MIPLC students are also qualified to apply for Ph.D. programs at any other university in Germany or abroad.