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EB-1A Strategy: Patents & Citations (What USCIS Wants!)

EB-1A Strategy: Patents & Citations (What USCIS Wants!)
Photo by The New York Public Library / Unsplash

Beyond the Numbers: Do Patents and Citations Guarantee Your EB-1A Green Card?

When we work together on their EB1A petitions, highly accomplished professionals, researchers, and innovators ask me "Do my patents and extensive citations guarantee my EB-1A green card approval?"

I wish there was a magic bullet, a single factor that would automatically secure your EB-1A petition. While a Nobel Prize would do the trick, for most, the path to extraordinary ability is a more nuanced journey. So, if you have a lot of citations to your scholarly articles and perhaps even a patent, you might assume USCIS will be immediately impressed, right? Surprisingly, not necessarily.

Let's dive into what these significant accomplishments truly mean for your EB-1A petition and how to best present them.

Patents: A Powerful, Yet Often Misunderstood, Asset for EB-1A

If you got a patent, congratulations! This is a tremendous accomplishment and a powerful indicator of your unique contributions. However, USCIS has recently begun to scrutinize patents more closely, asking crucial questions like:

  • Is the patent commercially viable?
  • Has it led to a product or service available in the market?

Many patents, especially in early-stage research or development, may not don't translate into commercially available products. Even if your patent isn't currently generating revenue or hasn't led to a product for sale, it's still a super strong factor in your favor for an EB-1A. Why? Because the U.S. government decided your unique accomplishment was worthy of protection.

As your attorney, my job is to tell the compelling story of your patent's relevance, highlighting its significance and potential impact, even if it hasn't been commercialized yet, or perhaps never will be. From my experience, I can't recall a single case where a client with a patent did not win their EB-1A petition. When I see a client has a patent, I’m thrilled – it’s always a huge positive.

Citations: A Deeper Dive into Their Impact on Your EB-1A

Citations are a bit of a different story compared to patents, primarily because their impact can vary significantly based on several factors. While a patent is generally a singular achievements, one author's citations can number in the hundreds or thousands.

When evaluating the strength of your citations for an EB-1A, we consider:

  • The sheer number: Are there hundreds? Thousands?
  • Recency: Are they from recent publications or older work?
  • Quality of journals: Are they from highly prestigious, peer-reviewed journals, or less prominent ones?
  • Field relevance: How important is academic research and publication in your specific industry or discipline? Is that where the cutting-edge conversation is happening?

Over the years, I've had many clients who engaged in significant scholarly work, published articles, and garnered impressive citations during a specific phase of their career, like during their PhD program. But then, they transitioned. Maybe they moved into consulting, industry, or applied sciences, no longer actively publishing at all.

Does this mean your older citations are irrelevant? Absolutely not!

A good lawyer who can effectively explain your career narrative can connect the dots. We can explain that your groundbreaking research and subsequent citations from a decade ago were the foundational work that you've since applied directly in industry or practice. You've taken theoretical concepts from academia and translated them into tangible, real-world solutions that professors and their lab assistants are still planning, while you are doing.

The Myth of the Magic Formula: Why Your Story Trumps a Checklist

This brings us to a crucial point: You should never get hung up on thinking that reaching a specific number of citations guarantees a win, or that falling below it means a loss. The same goes for believing citations must be from a certain time period or a particular level of journal prestige.

Many people become overly fixated on these numerical benchmarks because they want to believe the adjudication process for EB-1A, EB-1B, and National Interest Waivers (NIW) is more black and white than it truly is.

The truth is, there’s no magic formula. Your case isn't plugged into a formula that spits out "win" or "lose" based solely on your citation count. It's about something far more profound: creating a compelling narrative that makes coherent sense out of your entire career.

Tying It All Together: Crafting Your Coherent Story of Extraordinary Ability

If your evidence includes a mix of older accomplishments (like early citations) and more recent professional activities, your job – and mine as your attorney – is to seamlessly tie them together. We must demonstrate why, collectively, you represent the "total package," and why, today, you are an alien of extraordinary ability.

A Real-World Example:
Years ago, I had a wonderful client whose PhD research focused on a truly groundbreaking area: delivering medicine directly into tumors within organs. This was "gold" – a feel-good story about curing cancer, incredibly impactful and easy to understand.

However, when she came to me, her current work was for a corporation, making recipes for industrial glue. While incredibly important (think of how vital glue is to so many industries, from cars not falling apart to construction), it wasn't immediately obvious how it connected to her prior "heroic" cancer research. My initial challenge was to understand:

  • Why did a glue company want someone with a background in cancer research?
  • How were both these professional activities reflections of her extraordinariness?

It took time, working closely with her, to connect the dots. We uncovered the intricate scientific and engineering principles that bridged her past and present, demonstrating how both contributed significantly to society, the economy, and the well-being of the United States.

The Outcome: She successfully obtained her green card. Her citations were mostly old but still quite impressive. Her current work was behind the scenes, lacking the immediate public accolades of scholarly research. Yet, by crafting a powerful narrative that underscored the profound importance of her contributions in both phases of her career, it was a totally doable and successful case.

Your Path to EB-1A Success

Ultimately, while patents and citations are undeniably strong forms of evidence for an EB-1A petition, they are just pieces of a larger puzzle. The real power lies in how these accomplishments are presented and woven into a cohesive, compelling story of your extraordinary ability.

Don't let rigid checklists or arbitrary numbers limit your vision. With the right legal strategy and a clear narrative, your unique contributions can and will speak volumes to USCIS.

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Locke Immigration Law helps American businesses hire skilled foreign nationals to work in the United States.

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Want to learn how to strategically frame your achievements for the EB1A "Extraordinary Ability" visa?

My free 5-day email course, "5 Days to Your Compelling EB1A Story," provides the 'EB1A Storytelling Toolkit' to help you build a powerful case.

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