Hello, I am
**Zsofia Pintz**
**European Patent Attorney, European Union Trade Mark Attorney and EQE tutor.**
As a kid I did not know that patent and trademark attorneys exist. Even though my parents are both patent and trademark attorneys. Yes, that is right. I remember that any time I was asked in elementary school what my parents did, I had genuinely no idea. However, after some time I got more and more interested in patents and trademarks and didn’t stop asking them questions. Funnily enough, as a 15-year old girl I knew more about intellectual property than makeup. (I still do.)

My graduation

Since in Europe one must be an engineer to be able to qualify as a patent attorney, I studied hard in order to get into Budapest University of Technology and Economics. During my studies at university I also assisted my parents’ work with patent and trademark searches. I knew that becoming a patent and trademark attorney was going to be a very long journey with lots of courses and qualifying exams.

After obtaining my MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, I started my legal training and work as a patent attorney candidate in Hungary. After graduating from my first Intellectual Property course, I went to Munich to study at the European Patent Office, then to Washington, D.C. to learn about the US patent system as an intern at a US patent firm. After 5-6 years of working and studying, I qualified as a Hungarian Patent and Trademark Attorney and as a European Union Trademark and Design Attorney.

During my internship in Washington, D.C. (2013)

However, I did not stop here. I applied for and was selected to participate in a program run by the European Patent Office in order to start my training for the **European Patent Attorney qualifying exams**. Despite the very low passing rate, I **passed all 4 exams on first try**. During my preparations, I published my tips and shared my templates for the exam on my **EQE blog** that became very popular among patent attorney candidates. Even these days my blog has **500-800 of daily visitors in average** (with a record of more than 2500 a day) and candidates from all around Europe contact me for **tutoring sessions**.
I have always loved helping others and learning new things. I quickly realized that the job of a patent and trademark attorney is amazing because I can keep doing these. I can help inventors and business owners protect their inventions and brands by using my technical and legal knowledge I acquired in the last 13 years. I also realized that attorneys speak a different language from entrepreneurs and business owners who need jargon-free advice and cost-effective solutions for protecting their brands and inventions (or any other intellectual property).

As a patent and trademark attorney in private practice I had the opportunity to **advise hundreds of business owners**. I have met entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of business development and do not have unlimited resources but still would like to obtain exclusive rights. I have also met creators and inventors who found out about the need of protecting their intellectual property too late; after making thousand-dollar mistakes. Although I was able to help in these problematic situations as well, I know that the best and least expensive way is to think ahead.

For this reason, I am passionate about raising awareness of the importance of intellectual property (IP). In 2016, I launched a series of different IP themed lectures to raise IP awareness in Hungary. Between 2016 and 2018, I organized 30 workshops and had more than 300 participants.

I was also invited to a live TV talk to answer questions about IP and to multiple conferences to give presentations about IP for entrepreneurs.

I also had the chance to give a presentation for patent attorney candidates, when CIPA (Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys) invited me to talk about PCT at their conference in Birmingham in 2022. In 2023, I also gave a presentation about PCT for UK patent attorney candidates. Recently, I have been invited to provide a talk about the differences of EPC and PCT for the Norwegian Association of Intellectual Property Administrators, in Oslo.

After moving to the **United Kingdom** in 2020, I started my own company to be able to help even more business owners, online creators protect their brands and inventions. In 2020, I got to help Marina Mogilko (US based entrepreneur with 5M+ subscribers) register multiple trademarks.
However, in 2021 my courses for the European Patent Attorney qualifying exams (EQE) became so popular that **tutoring patent attorney candidates** became a big part of my daily work. I helped about **90 candidates to prepare for EQE 2022** via my study groups and my other tutoring services.
For **EQE 2023**, I organised even more study groups, and held about 115 meetings as a tutor. Candidates in my study groups came from 13 different countries and prestigious offices and companies such as the **EPO, Grünecker, Hoffmann Eitle, Barker Brettell, Bergenstråhle & Partners, Nestle, Kuhnen & Wacker, Onsagers, Adidas and Maiwald**.

Travelling and learning (by attending different conferences, courses and meeting other attorneys from the profession) have always been passions of mine. When I can combine these, even better!

Discussing EQE tutoring with Pete Pollard (European Patent Attorney, EQE tutor) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Visiting the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, Germany

Learning from Nyske Blokhuis (European Patent Attorney, EQE tutor) and professor Cees Mulder (European Patent Attorney, EQE tutor, author, EPI speaker) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Visiting the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Alicante, Spain

Nowadays, my daily work includes traditional patent and trademark attorney work, managing a European patent validation platform (Passport) and tutoring candidates for the EQE (from September until March).

Recently, I have started a new fun project as well: interviewing European Patent Attorneys to ask them how they became attorneys and about their work, etc. The goal of this project is to show future patent attorneys what a European Patent Attorney actually does. Spoiler alert: it is so much more than just drafting patent applications and answering office actions! You can find these interviews here on my website, just look around in the menu or footer.