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As never before, National and International competition demand ever faster and more accurate development of new products. At the same time corporate downsizings have stripped many R&D budgets to the bone. In this environment it is necessary for product designers to look at new and sometimes uncommon partners in the process of developing new products. Government and University partnerships designed to assist in researching and developing new products are available and more user friendly then ever before. Increasingly government labs are becoming a source of new product research and it is industry pressure that in part determines the direction of that research. If your industry is not working with government and university researchers then your industry is not going to benefit from the results of research conducted.

Engineers need to have a basic understanding of intellectual property: patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. This article is designed to serve as an introduction to patents as well as a guide for the technical professional who may or may not have the assistance of corporate legal counsel. Practical approaches to the three common issues that engineers are likely to get involved in: patent searching a product; avoiding patent infringement and protecting a new product idea are covered. Many facts about patents and intellectual property are introduced and a few myths are exposed.