Course Title: Patents and IP Basics for Scientists and Inventors

Course Level:  Beginner to Experienced; all can learn something. 

Course Description:

Patents and other forms of intellectual property (IP) are business tools that provide rights to inventors, creators, authors, and businesses that employ them. However, what they protect and how to use them are often poorly understood.  

This course will outline the various types of IP (such as patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights), what they protect, and what they do not protect.  

The course will then go into detail on what is needed to understand the patenting process, including the different types of patent applications, what must be disclosed for each, and what is unnecessary or even detrimental to getting and enforcing a patent. The contrast between the requirements of a scientific paper and a patent disclosure will be clarified. Myths and misconceptions about patents and the patent process will also be addressed and debunked. Exploration of options for prior art search tools will be presented, along with when a search is fruitful and when it is counter-productive.  

While the focus will mostly be on US patents and procedures, filing for patents in other countries under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the Paris Convention will also be discussed.  

Aside from patents, some detail on the requirements to secure trade secrets within a company will also be presented, and a comparison of strengths and weaknesses for patents vs. trade secrets will be presented. Comparisons between patent and copyright protections will also be discussed.  

 

Benefits and Learning Objectives: 

The short course will enable attendees to:  

Define the protections provided by patents, trademarks, trade secrets; and copyrights; 

Patents 

• Identify the different types and parts of a patent;  

• Analyze the types of claims for a patent, and constrict a patent claim tree; 

• Explain how software patent claims may be filed in the US patent system; 

• List the requirements for Provisional, Non-Provisional, and PCT patent applications; 

• Compare original, continuation, and divisional patents and patent applications, and construct a patent family tree; 

• Search for prior art for a patent or invention; 

• Describe the process of patent examination; 

• Describe what is and is not covered by a design patent. 

Other IP 

• Describe the process for registering a Trademark; 

• Compare design patent and trademark protections; 

• Describe what is needed to maintain a trade secret; 

• Compare the protection provided by patents vs. trade secrets; 

• Describe what is covered by copyright protection; 

• Compare patent and copyright protections. 

 

Intended Audience:

Anyone working in optics or photonics who has invention and is thinking about getting a patent on their inventions, or has or is forming a business, and wants to increase the asset value of the business through solid IP protection. No specific background training is required or assumed. 

Instructor Biography: 

Franklin Schellenberg has a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University, working in nonlinear optics and novel polymeric materials. 

He spent a decade in IBM Research and HP Labs investigating nonlinear optics, novel optical storage technologies, and optical lithography. He joined a start-up (OPC Technology, Inc.) developing optical resolution enhancement software for semiconductor lithography, which was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 1998. He passed the patent bar in 2000 and has been working on strategic patenting for large companies and start-ups since then. He joined the law firm Haynes Beffel & Wolfeld in 2022.