IP Paralegal

Perplexity•San Francisco, CA

2d•$130,000 - $210,000

About The Position

Perplexity AI is seeking a highly organized and resourceful IP Paralegal to support its growing intellectual property program. The role focuses primarily on patent and trademark prosecution and portfolio management, with additional support for copyrights, trade secrets, and open source compliance. It reports to the Director of Intellectual Property and provides direct exposure to novel questions at the intersection of artificial intelligence and IP law, as well as opportunities to grow across other areas of the in-house practice group. The paralegal will work closely with outside counsel, engineering stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to manage workflows for a growing patent and trademark portfolio, maintain copyright and trade secret practices, and support open source compliance review. The role owns day-to-day docketing and portfolio maintenance, outside counsel requests and billing against budget, and intake and matter tracking. It also administers the patent rewards program and supports IP diligence and IP-adjacent commercial and litigation matters as needed. This is a hands-on position for someone who is detail-oriented, comfortable working across multiple IP disciplines, fluent with AI and legal-technology tools, and motivated to build repeatable systems for a technically complex portfolio. The role includes using and helping to evolve agentic AI tools to improve the speed and consistency of IP workflows.

Requirements

10+ years of experience as an IP paralegal, with a mix of in-house and law firm experience.
Demonstrated AI tool fluency and genuine curiosity about applying agentic AI systems to IP program operations.
Hands-on experience supporting patent and trademark prosecution workflows, including docketing, filing coordination, and portfolio maintenance.
Working knowledge of copyright administration and trade secret protection practices.
Experience managing outside counsel relationships, including invoice review, budget tracking, and adherence to outside counsel guidelines.
Experience managing a high volume of concurrent matters and deadlines, with strong organizational skills and exacting attention to detail.
Ability to multitask and manage competing priorities in a fast-paced startup environment.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to correspond directly with outside counsel, inventors, and internal stakeholders.
Demonstrated discretion and sound judgment when handling confidential and privileged material.
Genuine interest in IP diligence work and readiness to support IP-adjacent needs, including commercial and litigation support.
A sense of humor and a team mindset.

Nice To Haves

Paralegal certificate, associate's degree in paralegal studies, or bachelor's degree.
Direct experience with open source license compliance review.
Experience running or supporting an inventor recognition or patent rewards/incentive program.
Experience supporting IP diligence for M&A, financing, or commercial transactions.
Litigation support experience, such as discovery, document review, or case file management.
Experience with IP portfolio analytics, competitive filing intelligence, or landscape mapping.
Direct experience with docketing platforms, IP management software, and legal billing or matter management systems.
Experience at a high-growth technology startup.
Interest in artificial intelligence laws and regulations.

Responsibilities

Manage end-to-end patent and trademark portfolio workflows, including docketing, deadline tracking, filing coordination, portfolio maintenance, and status reporting to internal stakeholders.
Support trade secret protection practices and open source compliance review, including tracking disclosure and license obligations and flagging issues for attorney review.
Administer copyright matters, including registration filings, recordation, and portfolio record keeping.
Own intake and triage for invention disclosures, trademark clearance requests, and other IP matters.
Manage outside counsel relationships and billing, including matter budgets, accrual tracking, invoice review against outside counsel guidelines, rate negotiation support, and matter-management hygiene in billing systems.
Run the patent rewards program.
Prepare and file U.S. trademark applications and coordinate foreign filings through local counsel.
Run preliminary clearance searches for new products and features.
Coordinate trademark office action responses, review watch notices, and recommend enforcement actions.
Manage the domain name portfolio and online brand protection and takedown programs.
Conduct IP portfolio analysis, including filing trend tracking, competitive landscape monitoring, and gap identification, to support portfolio strategy and prosecution priorities.
Support IP-adjacent matters as needed, including commercial contract IP terms and litigation support such as document gathering, chronologies, and coordination with outside counsel.
Maintain and improve internal file management systems, trackers, and dashboards, keeping matter data, deadlines, and portfolio status current and audit-ready.
Build and improve systems including intake workflows, filing playbooks, matter templates, and escalation paths.
Use and help evolve agentic AI tools for IP workflows such as docketing, disclosure intake, prior art gathering, and portfolio reporting, and identify opportunities for meaningful automation.