The reality is that you get multiple bites at the apple. You challenge at trial and in an IPR. Lose both, challenge with an EPR and appeal the trial. IPRs were initially created to simplify trial and cost, but once the estoppel provisions were determined not to have much teeth, it just became something you did because there was no downside.
Regarding law school, I would point out that law grad salaries are bi-modal. If you get in big law, you would start at $210k, if not you will start at a lot less. Presumably, with your background, your easiest pathway to big law is patent litigation, but I would say there is still a lot bias favoring EE degrees over CS, but less so than in the past (as I recall from interviewing a long time ago that was true, but at my firm, I think its less of issue, but your experience may vary).
Law school is expensive and I don't think there is a cheap option in the bay area (even the state school is expensive but in other locations, it can be cheaper), but they do give out scholarships.
I wouldn't choose law school unless you think you could do well in the actual legal career environment. I don't know what you mean by "good contacts for law school," but if that means you know people in the field, I would suggest talking to them about it. Get as much information you can get.
Any worries that law is not going to be a viable career with AI seems farfetched by me, particularly in litigation.
I have recently been listening to the "The Complete History of Science" podcast [1]. I have not gotten to the Copernicus portion yet, but I really enjoyed the ancient Greek astronomy episodes (including the episode on Aristarchus).
I was an engineer and then I went to law school. There were tons of older students in law school looking to change their careers, from housewives to Ph.D. grads. In intellectual property, it is not unusual to find lawyers whose prior careers was an engineer or scientist for many years. I've seen a few who graduated law school in the mid-to-late thirties, early forties and still go to big law, some eventually becoming partners.
I wouldn't go to law school unless you really want to do it, but the point is there are plenty of people out there looking to change their careers all the time. Some are more successful than others in achieving it (due to luck or other reasons), but it is not as uncommon as you may think it is. It's never too late. Good luck.
I also worked as a civilian for the Navy as an EE (b.s.). I think my pay was ~50k (in the mid 2000s). I don't know about the national labs, but my experience working for the navy was that funding was a fight, especially everything being siphoned off for the Afghanistan war. The equipment was pretty up to date (the computers were not the latest, but decent), the furniture was a mismatch collection of liquated stuff, lab reports were published to a confidential library, and we were on flex time, which made the hours great.
The greatest secret of government work is the hours. With the federal holidays, work celebrations at restaurants or bars, long lunches, you already work 30 hours a week.
Ford is attempting to change its dealership model to a better system (set pricing, dealership chargers, better training) by forcing them to agree to changes or lose your ability to sell Ford EVs. - https://insideevs.com/news/610114/ford-modele-dealership-rul...
It's better, but the dealer still makes 4-5k per EV they sell.
Rivian or Tesla, you can skip that 4-5k dealer surcharge. I am not sure Ford can really source the parts that much cheaper to sell the same final product for the same price?
I agree on Westsider. However, I always liked the Strand for its collection of history, science, and math books. While Strand can be crowded and touristy, it still has a good collection of books.
The Strand is one of the places/attractions/etc. that it's easy for locals to dump on a bit because it's something popular with tourists. But the reality is that they can be a lot of fun.
The last time I was in NYC, I was really hurting because of not one but two bad hamstrings cause by hockey. I could barely walk--which is not a great combination with NYC. I had some time and took a Circle Line cruise. It was delightful and I hadn't done it since I was a child!
