(originally published in the CIPA Journal, April 2002)

Previously, there have been a number of articles in CIPA concerning the impending problems associated with increasing numbers of Fellows approaching retirement.[1] This article attempts to assess these problems in a broader context.

The basic problem facing the profession is illustrated by the following graph of the demographic profile of the membership of CIPA. As can be seen from the graph below roughly half of the Fellows in CIPA are over fifty and therefore may be potentially retiring within the next ten to fifteen years.  If students and associates are included in the equation there are more members who are under forty than over fifty.  However, many associates are solicitors or barristers rather than patent attorneys in training and of course there is no guarantee that all students will necessarily qualify and remain in the profession. 

It possible to model the rate at which Fellows will retire from the profession merely by picking some arbitrary retirement age and assuming that on average all Fellows retire at that age.[2] The rate at which new Fellows join the Institute is slightly more problematical as two factors are involved: the rate of recruitment and the qualification rate.

The actual numbers of students qualifying and joining the Institute varies considerably year on year due to varying pass rates in the exams and the individual demands of firms and companies. A better indicator of the rates at which students join and qualify is therefore a figure averaged over a number of years. The following graph illustrates how, averaged over a three-year moving window, levels of recruitment have varied between 1989 and 2000. The graph also illustrates a similar three-year moving average for the numbers of new Fellows and new British EPAs for the years 1992 to 2000.

In the graph above the data for numbers of Fellows and EPAs has been shifted back by three years (that is to say the 1992 data for Fellows and EPAs is shown below the 1989 data for Students admitted etc.) to show the strong correlation between numbers admitted and numbers qualifying three years later.[3]  The graph indicates average recruitment has almost doubled over the last eleven years rising from just over sixty a year between 1988 and 1990 to more than 120 a year in the period 1998-2000.  The correlation illustrated by the graph indicates that the proportion of students who qualify as Fellows and EPAs has remained roughly constant regardless of the level of recruitment.  It would appear that for every twenty students admitted, roughly thirteen end up qualifying both as Fellows and EPAs, whilst a further four qualify only as EPAs.  The remaining three students leave the profession without qualifying.

Using the above it is possible to estimate how the profession will grow over the next fifteen years.  The graph below shows numbers of registered patent agents between 1950 and 2000 and estimates of numbers through to 2015.  The estimates are based upon the assumption that Fellows retire at the age of 65 and 65% of students recruited ultimately qualify as registered patent agents.  Three different scenarios are illustrated based upon different levels of average recruitment.

The graph shows that due to the increasing numbers of Fellows who are retiring, over fifty students a year need to be recruited merely to replace the agents who retire.  The explanation of the profession’s current problems can also be seen in the graph. In the ten years between 1950 and 1960 the size of the profession grew by approximately 100 agents.  In contrast, between 1960 and 1970 the profession grew by approximately 300 agents.  This means that instead of agents retiring at rate of approximately 25 a year as was the case in the 1990s, the retirement rate will soon jump to about 45 a year.

The graph also shows a clear demarcation between the growth in the profession before and after the opening of the European Patent Office.  In the years 1950 to 1978, the profession grew at on average by 3.75% per year. In the years 1978 to 2000, the profession still grew but at the much reduced rate of 1.1% per year.   This change in growth rate is reflected by the demographics of CIPA shown in the first graph. For each five-year block of agents over the age of 55 the numbers of members aged 55-59 is larger than those aged 60-64 which in turn is greater than the block for those aged over 65.  These three sets of members reflect the increase in membership at a rate of 3.75% per year prior to 1978.  The block of members aged 50-54 marks the transition from one growth rate to the next, whilst the blocks for agents aged 30-50 show the increase in numbers at the lower rate. Finally, the relatively small numbers for members under the age of 30 indicates that recruitment of new students occurs at these ages and that not all potential members of CIPA are actually included in the first graph. The fact that a significant proportion of recruitment occurs after the age of 25 is confirmed by the fact that recent levels of annual recruitment exceeds the total number of CIPA members in this age bracket.[4]

The next question to be asked is whether recruitment at the level required for the profession to continue to grow is sustainable.  Clearly, as the overall numbers are small, even though companies and firms may have very specific requirements for the trainees they take on, the main problem is not the supply of new recruits.  Rather, the main issue is given that any new recruits must be supervised, how many trainees can the profession possibly cope with?

An answer may be found in the historical data of the ratio of Registered Patent Agents to students.[5]  This figure indicates how many agents were available to train each student in the past.  The ratio of Agents to Students from 1950 to 2001 is shown in the following graph.

As can be seen from the graph, due to the current high levels of recruitment the ratio of agents to students dropped below three in 1999, the lowest level it has been at since 1975.  This low ratio of agents to students is giving rise to the feeling that there are not enough agents to cope with the present training workload and explains the JEB’s perennial problems in finding sufficient examiners to mark an ever increasing number of exam scripts.  Although the ratio of agents to students is now lower than it has been for twenty-five years, looking further back this ratio was even lower during the period 1958 to 1972, falling to just below a ratio of 2:1 in 1961.  This suggests that although the profession is approaching the limits of its capacity to train new recruits, some capacity remains. The absolute maximum figure for new recruits in a year appears to be 10% of the total number of agents or, given the current size of the Institute, 140 new recruits a year.  This suggests the maximum rate that the profession might grow is now around 3.3% per annum were such a very high recruitment level to be sustained.[6]

The demographic time bomb is an inevitable consequence of the increase in the size of the profession in the 1960s.  Compared with previous years the numbers of Fellows retiring will inevitably increase.  The only way for the profession to avoid shrinking is for high levels of recruitment to be maintained.  The increase in the number of students admitted from 60 a year to around 120 a year suggests that this is exactly what the profession is starting to do.

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