Patent Agent

The application window is expected to close on: 10/18/2026

“Members of the Legal organization at select locations will generally be expected to follow a hybrid work model, which includes two days of in-office attendance each week, with limited exceptions.”

Meet the Team

At Cisco, the Intellectual Property team sits at the crossroads of technology, business, and law, with insight into an extraordinary breadth of innovation spanning networking, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, collaboration, and observability. We work together inside a legal organization that treats IP as a strategic business asset and are building the institutional frameworks that let Cisco's engineers translate invention into durable protection.

Your Impact

• We’re looking for a technical specialist and/or patent agent or engineer to partner with our team in strengthening our patent portfolio and advancing our IP management processes and infrastructure. Someone who likes digging into technology and business strategy in equal measure; who can talk to engineers in their language and to the business in theirs and is at home in both rooms.

• You’ll work alongside technologists and distinguished engineers across our business, learn what they’re building, and turn it into protection that holds up; then explain it to attorneys, business partners, and leadership in language anyone can follow.

• You’ll help us enhance the patent program; we want the person doing the work to help shape how the work runs. We value continuous improvement, meaning you can help us refine our workflows and define how we operate from day one.

In practice, you will:

• Work with our inventors to strengthen Cisco’s patent portfolio, purposefully harvesting and evaluating our inventions to file and develop our patent assets. This includes identifying patentable inventions; providing high quality technical and patent practitioner analysis; and working with outside counsel to draft, file, and prosecute strategic and deployable assets.

• Partner across the business by building relationships with engineering teams, product groups, and various business units to deeply understand their business and ensure that IP is part of how they think rather than a step at the end of the process.

• Translate technical subject matter clearly to non-technical audiences and patent practitioner subject matter clearly to technical ones. Write the summaries that let a business leader make decisions without needing a patent background.

• Help us optimize our program by contributing ideas to, and helping complete, invention intake, prosecution standards, and analytics we’re – advised by what you’re learning in the actual work. The person doing the work should have a say in how the work runs and be able to pass along what you figure out to uplevel the team.

Minimum Qualifications

• USPTO Registration: Active USPTO registration as a patent agent or ability to obtain one.

• Demonstrated experience using enterprise IP Management Systems (IPMS) and advanced patent analytics platforms to drive portfolio strategy, assess competitive landscapes, and manage sophisticated patent lifecycles.

Preferred Qualifications

• In-house patent preparation and prosecution experience, or firm experience working closely with an in-house client.

• Ability to make data say something. You’ve pulled numbers into an argument that showed a client, a business partner, or a leadership audience what the work was actually worth.

• Track record of credible, concise executive communication on patent risk; ability to translate genuinely unsettled patent issues into business-relevant guidance for executives and engineers without over-hedging or misrepresenting the state of the law, and with demonstrated ability to defend a position under skeptical questioning.

• Technical experience with at least one of the following technical areas: silicon and optics, AI infrastructure and networking, security, collaboration, observability and cloud management, compute, or wireless communications.

• You’re someone who is: comfortable navigating ambiguity to generate strategies that deliver impact; comfortable learning unfamiliar technology and holding a real conversation with senior engineers; curious about the business, not just the technology to understand how we compete in the marketplace and what that means for what we protect; and collaborative by default: you share credit, ask for help, and work well across functions. A sense of humor is a plus!

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $169,300.00 to $237,200.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees

• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco

• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees

• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)

• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next

• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members

• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$194,600.00 - $328,600.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$179,000.00 - $294,000.00

• For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis.

Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.