The purpose of this exercise is for you to appreciate and recognize the intellectual property inherent in your work by (a) researching related patents, and (b) writing a CWRU patent disclosure for your senior project.
CWRU patent disclosure form (DOC, 48kB)
This is the new form which Nick Frollini mentioned in class.
CWRU patent & licensing policy (PDF, 12kB)
This form is also downloadable from the CWRU technology Transfer Office.
This site contains a directory of all US patents and contains a search engine which will allow you to retrieve patents on a page-by-page basis. While it is useful and instructive to perform a patent search so that you can learn a lot about the field of the invention, it is also risky to rely on negative results of such a search. After all, if you are the inventor you really do not want to find out that someone else has already patented your latest idea. really does not want to find the invention. Patent searching can also be difficult due to quirks in the patent classification system or online databases.
This US Patent & Trademark Office gives a good overview of what can be patented. In general computer software is very difficult to patent and is instead copyrighted. See what the government says about software patents .
The main component of your patent disclosure will be the answer to question #2 — Please attach a description of the technology. This may be written in three parts.
The first part of your response to Question #2 should be a simple explanation of your invention. This can be a re-write of your Executive Summary with some of your introduction from your Interim Technical Report thrown in.
The second part of your response to Question #2 should be a patent search for related work. This is unlike a regular patent disclosure. You should include a short list of key words used in your patent search and a list of what you think are relevant patents. You may not find any related patents although this is rare. If so, include a list of key words/subjects you searched for.
The third part of your response to Question #3 should be an analysis of whether your project is patentable. As discussed in class a patent requires that the invention be "new and useful" with the emphasis upon "new" for this exercise. New means that it be sufficiently different from previous inventions that the differences are not obvious to "one skilled in the art." Describe whether you think your project is patentable and why. You are not being graded upon whether your project is patentable, but upon your analysis of its patentability.
We are not looking for a long essay for this assignment. Most senior project patent disclosues are the form PLUS 1-3 pages of written response to question #2.
You are only responsibe for questions 1-3 and 6 of the patent form. You may skip questions 4,5, 7-10 and anything below question 10 including signatures and witnesses.
Download a copy of the evaluation form (PDF, 8kB) that will be used to grade your patent disclosure.