Legal Assistant, IP

Job Description

McCarthy Tétrault is a leading Canadian law firm offering a full suite of legal and business solutions to clients in Canada and around the world. With offices in Toronto, Montréal, Québec City, Calgary and Vancouver, we provide challenging and rewarding career opportunities across the country. Recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for eleven consecutive years and one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers for fourteen consecutive years, our culture is guided by The McCarthy Way
—our shared approach to working with clients and with each other.

The McCarthy Way is built on four core elements:
Excellence
, through attracting and developing top talent committed to delivering on our Client Commitment;
Collaboration
, through seamless, integrated teamwork;
Inclusion
, through eliminating barriers to belonging and success; and Innovation
, through delivering maximum value by embracing leading-edge technologies and approaches. Together, these principles shape how we work, lead, and grow—every day.

We are recruiting for a Legal Assistant, IP (Patent) to join our team in our Toronto office. The successful candidate must have a minimum of 5 years’ experience as a Patent legal assistant in an Intellectual Property group, and will be responsible for filing patent, industrial design, and copyright applications with Canadian Intellectual Property Office, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and other administrative functions.

McCarthy Tétrault employees benefit from a hybrid work environment. This position is to fill an existing vacancy.

Salary Range (Toronto Only): $60,000 - $80,000 annually.

The offered salary may vary based on the candidate’s job-specific knowledge, skills, and experience.

As a Legal Assistant, Intellectual Property you will be:

Documents

• Drafting, preparing, formatting, and revising all correspondence and submissions for Intellectual Property Offices in Canada, the US, and elsewhere, including the Canadian Patent Office and the Canadian Industrial Design Office (CIPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and WIPO, including office action responses.
• Filing submissions with CIPO, the USPTO, and WIPO via fax, courier, and online tools (e.g., CIPO’s Patent Portal, MyCIPO Patents, Patent Center, etc.), including generation of cover letters, fax cover sheets, and fee payment forms.

File and Time Management

• Managing lawyer's prosecution practice, including delegating tasks to appropriate IP team members, and following up with regards to status.
• Supporting lawyer’s regulatory practice, including conducting drug/patent searches, drafting PM(NOC)-related documents, and preparing letters addressed to Health Canada/OPML.
• Reviewing all Pattsy information including checking all docket entries, ensuring data is correctly entered and maintained, requesting changes and follow-up dates as needed, generating docket reports, and tracking all deadlines (official, internal, or client/external) and work progress in all active files to make sure due dates are met.
• Contacting Intellectual Property Offices, including CIPO and the USPTO, to resolve basic issues on files such as inquiries and status updates on applications or changes to paperwork and follow ups.
• Managing physical and electronic files for the IP group; ensuring they are current with all relevant documentation, submissions, and correspondence; bringing forward and pulling files as necessary for lawyer's attention.
• Requisition ing new files; maintaining a record of all client files and client data, including contact information.
• Coordinating daily practice of lawyer to ensure hard and soft deadlines are being addressed.

Administrative Functions

• Liaising with billing analyst on prebills and invoices…