Patent Researcher

Job description

Solvay is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristics.

Solvay is a multi-specialty chemical company committed to developing chemistry that addresses key societal challenges. We innovate and partner with customers in diverse global end markets. The Research & Innovation Function (R&I) leads Solvay into new growth territories with breakthrough innovation to generate new products, applications and processes in the field of sustainable chemistry. It partners with the GBUs to deliver more value and leverages the Group’s capabilities to improve competitiveness and create new business opportunities for Solvay and its customers.   As part of a team including Patents Counsels, IP agreement specialists and other technical information specialists, the Technical Information Specialist shall perform intellectual property related and technological information searches and provide alerts designed to support the work of research and business development staff and patent counsels in the Novecare GBU perimeter.

Job Overview and Responsibilities:

In support to the activities of patent counsels, the selected candidate will establish search strategies for unveiling, selecting and gathering from various databases, by means of complex electronic search tools, essential information relevant to patent attorney for:
·  Assessing novelty of technical results with the aim of securing patent applications thereupon
·  Challenging validity of third parties’ patent rights;
·  Identifying possible patent obstacles owned by third parties which might be of concern for our intended manufacturing, use or sale activities.

In support of the Novecare GBU, the candidate will maintain awareness of the strategic segments (and opportunist niches) of the GBU and proactively propose new sub segments to monitor. Discuss, define and regularly review with the GBU and Patent Counsels the domains and scope for patent alerts. Develop a patent alert search strategy for selected domains.
Implement, test  and run the search strategies and pre-select/categorize the relevant information. Maintain and develop the delivery system (internal database and monthly).

Education and Experience:

·  Masters or PhD degree preferred in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering or Materials Science, or a related chemistry discipline.
·  Basic knowledge of patent law system would be a plus.

Skills:

·  Consolidated digital proficiency for exploiting a variety of internal as well as external electronic resources and tools with a minimum of support
·  Developed analytical and scientific rigor, mental discipline, and reliability; ability to manage large data-sets in ordered and structured manner
·  Having the ability to pro-actively organize a challenging workload and promptly adapt planning when confronted with unforeseen changes
·  Possess excellent verbal and written communication skills together with the ability to process, analyze and synthesize a large amount of information rapidly and efficiently
·  Be keen to work in a multicultural and cross-border professional environment;

Full proficiency in English; elementary understanding of written technical texts in an additional foreign language (e.g. French) would be a plus.

Additional Information

Full proficiency in English; elementary understanding of written technical texts in an additional foreign language (e.g. French) would be a plus.

*LI-KC1