WHY REINVENT THE WHEEL? THE U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE AS A DESIGN TOOL

摘要

While learning the design process, many freshman and sophomore engineering students never realize or make use of the great deal of information that is available to them through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"). Because these students often have little theoretical or practical knowledge of working designs, they lack the ability and skills needed to generate "from scratch" alternatives for consideration. They can, however, perform elementary reverse engineering analyses on the ideas contained in patents, and use these ideas as a foundation for the development of creative and innovative design solutions. This paper outlines the experiences gained using the USPTO patent library to develop design solutions in the Introduction to Engineering Design with CAD course project. In this course, freshman and sophomore engineering students use the patent library to develop an understanding of engineering concepts and then apply these concepts to develop an integrated set of design components. Use of the patent library allows students to make significant and rapid progress in understanding and developing an integrated solution without having to have had all of the advanced engineering courses necessary to develop the components.