Senior Design and Lack of Patents

After watching all of my fellow seniors give their final presentations during class this morning, I was appalled at the lack of groups that decided to pursue some form of intellectual property protection.

In an effort of fairness, not all groups are allowed to pursue intellectual property protection as they are under non-disclosure agreements with project sponsors. However, some of the projects were sponsored by entities that did not require them to sign non disclosure agreements. A simple review of the Penn State Student IP Rights can be seen below. Basically, it states that any undergraduate retains the rights to any project, thesis, homework work that presents a novel, patentable concept.

After seeing the work put into the senior design projects and the brilliance that some of my fellow classmates have shown, it dissapoints me that many of them will never be able to capitalize upon their ideas. Their ideas have been presented to an industry panel with judges. Therefore, they can never reap the benefits of having protection of their idea.

Penn State Student IP Rights