Is there a difference between a patent attorney and a DIFFERENTIAL patent attorney?

Answer 1

There is no difference.. just that one is more focused on impact versus the other on technicalities. Either way, both are patent attorneys.

A differential patent attorney is focusing on some specifics involving differential impact reform.

I'm going to paste an article I read on this. You might get a better feel for the variance in it.

This article presents a new method of analyzing patent reform proposals through the use of differential impact analysis. Congressional efforts to address the crisis of confidence in the U.S. patent system have failed up to the present day. If Congress is to have any hope of passing much needed legislative reform to the Patent Act, the supporters of patent reform will have to unite behind a streamlined set of proposals that directly address the most pressing and unambiguous defects of the current patent system. To that end, we have proposed applying a test of differential impact to enable Congress to prioritize those reforms which will discourage the acquisition and assertion of bad patents without unduly prejudicing the interests of the holders of good patents. The differential impact approach elucidated in this article has at least three distinct advantages over other efforts to rewrite the patent system from the ground up. First, the differential impact approach provides a mechanism by which to evaluate competing claims for legislative resources. Second, the differential impact approach is an appropriate response to the empirical uncertainty surrounding optimal patent scope. Third, differential impact is consistent with the need to take the legitimate expectations of current stakeholders into account.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=925722

Answer 2

There is a difference in the patents. One describes an entire thing or process. The other describes the differences between an original patent and a new thing/process.

The same attorney can file both, and most patent attorneys could handle either with equal proficiency.

As with any area of law, it is possible to become so specialized that you can't perform similar but related tasks. Like a contract attorney that specializing in complex licensing agreements, but can't draft a basic sales contract. But in general, the attorney is the same, even if the patent form itself is different.

Answer 3

I don't want to burst everybody's bubble here, but there is no such thing as a "differential patent attorney." There are a few different specialities within patent law, but that is not one of them.