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The rules of qualification aren’t being rewritten overnight, but the questions are getting sharper. We sit down with Debbie Slater, Chair of CIPA’s Education Committee, to unpack the IPReg Education Review and what it could mean for anyone training as a UK patent attorney or trademark attorney over the next few years. The focus is forward-looking: what skills, knowledge, and professional behaviors should someone have at the point of registration, and how do we build training and assessment that actually matches the work attorneys do. 

We explore why the UK pathway can’t be separated from the European Patent Office and the EQE route, especially when so much UK practice runs through Europe. Debbie and the hosts dig into the apprenticeship model, mentoring, and why the profession often talks about “exams” when the reality looks much more like competency-based assessment. We also get practical about what proportionate quality assurance looks like for a small profession, and how costs, resources, and fairness shape access and diversity. 

Then we take on the topic everyone’s wrestling with: AI in patent drafting, prosecution, and client communications. If a large language model can generate a first draft and clients can arrive with AI-assisted interpretations of prior art or office actions, what must trainees still learn the hard way? The answer keeps circling back to judgment, fundamentals, and the ability to review critically, not just produce text. 

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