‘Food for Engineers’: Intellectual Property Education for Innovators

Abstract

<jats:p> Intellectual property competence can assist individuals and organizations to capitalize on opportunities presented by accelerating developments in the knowledge economy. Engineers translate ideas into concrete solutions, which are frequently useful and commercially valuable, if the intrinsic intellectual property has been identified and protected. Professional bodies are beginning to acknowledge the importance of intellectual property competence as an enterprise skill for new graduates. Universities must rethink undergraduate curricula to enhance students' entrepreneurial skills and widen participation, while research strategies must take account of the growing fuzziness of disciplinary boundaries. Where faculties are expected to deliver to new agendas, despite shrinking resources and an overcrowded syllabus, self-managed learning activities work with assessment strategies to achieve new independent learning outcomes. </jats:p>

Intellectual property education - thinking outside the box meets colouring within the lines

“…Many of these skills and values can also be incorporated into the teaching of substantive and procedural law. (McQuoid-Mason, 2006) Soetendorp (2004) based on Hennessey (1999) reports on a range of approaches that she has adopted to teach IP material to engineering and design students. She lists these as the case method; the problem-solving method; the simulation method; the clinical method and the doctrinal method.…”

We Own This: A Class Patent System as Experiential Learning

“…Instruction in intellectual property is common in engineering design curricula [1]- [5], because engineers typically must protect their creative design work with patents, trade secrets, and other forms of intellectual property. Though the ideas behind intellectual property are important and conceptually interesting, the details can be tedious, and the entire topic can end up being perceived by students as unexciting [6].…”