Head of IP

Your mission

At planqc, we are building scalable quantum computers based on neutral atoms. Turning this technology into practical systems requires expertise across physics, engineering, software, and operations.
As our Head of IP , you will take over and scale our intellectual property function. There is a real portfolio to work with: patent families we own across quantum error correction, atom transport architectures, qubit addressing and laser systems, plus foundational technology licensed in from leading research institutes. There is also a growing amount to decide: which inventions to file, which markets to protect them in, which licenses are worth taking, and where we are prepared to spend to defend a position.
You will report to our CTO and co-founder, and work closely with the R&D teams whose work feeds the portfolio and with our external patent counsel in Europe and worldwide. Our filing budget is set to grow several-fold over the coming years and many of our families reach national-phase decisions in the same period, so the quality of your judgment will show up directly in both our IP position and our cost base.
This is a hands‑on role to begin with: you, an established external counsel network, and the mandate to build a small team as our filing volume grows.
This role is ideal for someone who is comfortable inheriting a portfolio and forming their own view of it — reviewing what exists, deciding what is worth investing in, and closing the gaps. Someone who can discuss atom shuttling and error‑correction codes with physicists in the morning and claim scope with attorneys in the afternoon, and who is pragmatic enough to make good decisions on a finite budget rather than perfect ones too late.

Your responsibilities

• Own planqc's IP strategy and keep it aligned with our technology and product roadmap, together with the CTO and the founders — including the standard positions and playbooks that stop recurring questions being renegotiated case by case, and a clear view of who decides what at which threshold.
• Take stock of the existing portfolio and pending cases early on, form your own view of their strength and commercial relevance, and tell us where to invest, refile or let go.
• Run the tiered filing strategy end to end — core EP, US and PCT filings, unitary patent and opt‑out decisions, and the national‑phase entries across our priority markets that drive most of the cost — and manage the IP budget as it scales, with the trade‑offs that come with it: more filings, wider geographies, or deeper protection of fewer things.
• Own IP for our software and algorithmic stack alongside the hardware portfolio: patent strategy for computer‑implemented inventions, the patent‑versus‑trade‑secret call on control, calibration and compilation software, copyright and contribution ownership, and open‑source compliance and inbound licence policy.
• Decide what we protect without filing: the trade secret program, publication clearance with the labs, and the export‑control considerations that shape where we file and what we disclose.
• Drive the freedom‑to‑operate program at scale: rolling monitoring of competitor filings, threat triage with input from R&D, third‑party observations and oppositions, invalidity opinions, design‑arounds and cross‑licensing — with particular attention to the broad claims being granted in the US.
• Own the IP architecture of our bilateral development and supply partnerships: background/foreground delineation, ownership of jointly created results, field and exclusivity carve‑outs, sublicensing rights, and continuity protection — including change‑of‑control and insolvency scenarios on the partner side.
• Negotiate and manage IP in multi‑party research consortia: background lists, foreground ownership, access rights for project execution versus commercial exploitation, publication and dissemination approval, and tracking the resulting obligations across all partners.
• Lead our in‑licensing: evaluate and negotiate the technology packages available to us from our research partners and own the resulting agreements and obligations.
• Set the IP terms on the commercial side: our out‑licensing and access models, ownership of results and improvements across forward‑deployment, consulting and platform‑access engagements, feedback and improvement clauses, and the positions we defend in customer negotiations — and keep the whole position investor‑and customer‑ready, from diligence to data room.
• Design and maintain our group IP structure across entities and jurisdictions: where IP is held, intercompany licence and assignment agreements, transfer of IP into the group from research institutions and acquired teams, ownership of results generated by subsidiaries, and the interface to finance and tax on IP transfer pricing.
• Own the relationship with our external IP counsel and our network of local agents — the scope of the mandate, the commercial terms, the service levels, and the split between what counsel handles and what we do ourselves. You are the client here, and you set the brief.
• Build the internal machinery and the habit that feeds it: invention disclosure and review, docketing and IP management tooling, administration of the employee‑invention regimes in the jurisdictions where we employ inventors — and making recognition and capture of inventions a normal part of how teams work, through coaching, lightweight process, and sensible use of AI tooling with a human in the loop.

What you bring

• A degree in physics, optics/photonics, electrical engineering, computer science, applied mathematics or a closely related field. A PhD is welcome but not required.
• Qualification as Patentanwalt/Patentanwältin and/or European Patent Attorney, or several years of in‑house IP experience in a technology company with a comparable track record.
• Strong knowledge of patent drafting and prosecution before the EPO and DPMA, and a practical working understanding of US practice.
• Demonstrated experience negotiating IP provisions in joint development, collaboration and consortium agreements — background/foreground, access rights, exclusivity, change of control — and holding a position against sophisticated counterparties.
• The ability to make defensible file / publish / keep‑secret / drop decisions with incomplete information and a real budget constraint, and to hold that position with founders, inventors and outside counsel.
• Comfort with the subject matter: our portfolio spans error‑correction protocols, atom transport and trapping architectures, optical cavities and lattices, laser stabilization and qubit‑addressing optics, and the software that runs them. You need not have worked on neutral atoms, but you should be able to read, question and defend this kind of technical content.
• Fluent English. German at a level that lets you work comfortably with German firms, the DPMA and employee‑invention matters — or the clear intention to get there.

Nice to have

• Experience in quantum technologies, laser and optical systems, semiconductors or another hardware‑heavy deep‑tech field.
• Licence negotiation with universities and research institutes, and IP in publicly funded collaborative projects (e.g. EU or BMBF consortia).
• Trade secret protection, and how export control and dual‑use rules interact with IP, publication and collaboration.
• Opposition and third‑party observation practice before the EPO.
• Patent eligibility for computer‑implemented inventions before the EPO and in the US, and open‑source governance in a commercial hardware product.
• Cross‑border IP ownership in a group structure: intercompany licensing, IP transfer from research institutions, and differing employee‑invention regimes.
• IP in M&A, carve‑outs or spin‑out transfers from research institutions.
• Previous experience in a startup, scale‑up or research spin‑out.

What characterizes you

• You take initiative and enjoy owning your topics.
• You enjoy questioning existing approaches and improving the way things are done.
• You bring positive energy to the team. We care deeply about our work, but we also believe that kindness, curiosity and a good sense of humor make work more enjoyable.

Why join planqc

• Work on one of the most exciting technologies of our time and help build scalable quantum computers.
• Take charge of a real portfolio. Patent families across error‑correction protocols, atom transport architectures and laser systems, a filing budget set to grow several‑fold, and the remit to decide what we protect and where.
• Report directly to our CTO and co‑founder, with a short path from your judgment to a decision.
• Genuine room to shape how this is done. The processes, the playbooks, the counsel relationships and the group IP structure are yours to design, and there is a mandate to build a small team as filing volume grows.
• Work with the people making the inventions. You will sit with physicists and engineers building neutral‑atom quantum computers and negotiate the licences that bring foundational technology in from our research partners.
• Hybrid working model with 2–3 office days per week at our headquarters in Garching, where applicable.