Tech Transfer and Intellectual Property

       This past week I had the very special opportunity to attend a talk by Gaylene Anderson who is from the University of Idaho Tech Transfer.  She gave a very easy-to-listen-to, highly informative talk on how to protect intellectual property.  While she gave us information on patents, licenses, trade secrets, and tips and information on how the process of technology transfer works, there were a few things that stuck out as being especially useful to me right now.  These were things like: the things an idea (i.e. an invention) has to be in order for it to be patent-able, what to do when sharing your ideas with others, and knowing whom your customer is.
The first thing that stuck out to me as being pertinent to my current situation was when she talked about what an idea has to be in order for her to be able to file it for a patent.  Interestingly enough, the idea must be novel, useful, and non-obvious.  The first two made sense to me right away.  Obviously, if a new invention is not going to be novel or useful, it is probably not worth patenting.  However, the third stipulation, that of the idea being non-obvious, caught me slightly off-guard.  In my mind, I had always thought that it wouldn’t matter how obvious (i.e. if someone else in your profession looked at it would they be able to figure it out easily) of a thing it was as long as your invention was something novel and useful.  Knowing this gives me a much clearer idea of what I need to aim for when developing new products, and when deciding if an idea is worth patenting or not.
Sharing ideas with others is an extremely natural thing for people to do.  I know that if I have a new thing or idea, I just love telling others about it.  Knowing this, Gaylene Anderson gave us some tips on how to be able to share our ideas with others while keeping them safe from being stolen, etc.  By making the party I am sharing with sign a confidentiality agreement (even if it is only on a napkin), not only will they not be able to steal my idea, but also my disclosure of information will not be considered a “public disclosure” and I will not be required to file for a patent within 12 months.  This it invaluable to me because I love telling others about my work and designs, so having a way that I can do that without painting myself into a corner is going to be very useful.
Finally, Gaylene Anderson reminded us of the importance of knowing who my customer is.  She told numerous stories of products that were “cool”, but had no marketability because there was no customer base for them.  This is definitely an important point since Dr. Elger has been pointing it out a lot as well this semester.  Understandably, I can apply this idea in every product that I create.  Knowing who my customers are while I am building a product will not only allow me to create better products, but also more marketable ones.
Gaylene Anderson’s talk was incredibly helpful to me as an engineer who is excited about designing and inventing new things.