How might engineering technology students make use of patent information in the engineering design process? Librarians analyzed team project reports and personal reflections created by students in an undergraduate mechanical engineering technology design course, revealing that the students used patents to consider the patentability of their ideas, to explore the state of the art in given areas of technology, and to inspire creative problem solving. These results have implications for future patent-related instruction and for conducting information literacy outreach to engineering and engineering technology departments.

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Patent Information Use in Engineering Technology Design: An Analysis of Student Work.

Patents have wide appeal to students, faculty, and employers and can be a potent tool for integrating information literacy (IL) into engineering and technology curricula. There is evidence to show that students use patents to assess the patentability of their design ideas, explore the state of the art in a given area of technology, and to inspire creativity in their work. Faculty use patents and other complementary forms of gray literature to go beyond the traditional IL world of scholarly literature and engage students with information problems that reflect real-world design challenges. Working with patents allows students to develop strategic, innovative, and practical information skills that are valuable and attractive to employers in the modern technology workplace. Putting these ideas of patent-related information literacy into practice, this paper will discuss the collaborative efforts between academic librarians and disciplinary faculty to integrate patent IL content into a scaffolded IL sequence in a technology-focused undergraduate curriculum. This sequence, which also covers scholarly information and technical standards, presents students with increasingly complex information problems over the course of their academic career. The entire IL sequence, which includes four design classes, will be described, with a primary focus on how patent IL fits into and enhances this

/pdf/inspiring-innovation-with-patent-information-literacy-in-the-2eehroe2yr.pdf

Inspiring Innovation with Patent Information Literacy in the Engineering Technology Curriculum

The loading of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database on the Internet has set off a chain reaction with other patent database publishers. Patent information has never been so accessible, at such low cost, to so many people as now. This new accessibility has spawned a new set of questions about the Internet patent databases, such as, what are their uses, and what are the differences? Librarians who do not specialize in patent searching might have reservations about doing patent searches. This article describe? the different patent databases on the Internet, lists their strengths and weakness, and recommends the best free patent databases.

Internet patent databases: everyone is a patent searcher now

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Internet patent databases: everyone is a patent searcher now