Case Studies

Intellectual Property Case Studies
(PDF - 2.35 MB - 2 pages)

Your students are the innovators of tomorrow!

You can pave the way by providing them the opportunity to learn how to protect and bring their ideas to the marketplace.

Our case studies consist of practical and realistic situations that students are likely to encounter in their academic and professional lives. Whether they pursue a career in research, business, engineering or other discipline, they will greatly benefit from this new knowledge.

CellBio

Protection and commercialization of stem cells

Kim Wilson has been awarded a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship to work in a stem cell research lab at a Canadian university. Her work is leading to significant discoveries for the treatment of spinal cord injuries.

Although Kim is interested in commercializing some of her research, she would like to ensure that doing so would not prevent other researchers from having access to her findings.

This is a very important workshop for scientists, researchers and university employees. It opened my eyes to the world of IP.

– student from the University of Calgary

– student from the University of Calgary

Samantha Chang

Who owns the idea?

Samantha is a student working in a professor's lab over the summer.

She develops and implements an idea for a process control project with an auto manufacturer. Her idea has the potential to generate a considerable amount of additional income for the client company. The client now wants to file a patent on the idea.

Very good presentation! I thought that IP did not interest me, but I was wrong.

– student from the Université Laval

John Thomson

How to market an invention?

John Thomson is a young entrepreneur and community college graduate. He owns and operates a glass-recycling business. He designed a machine — the SuperSorter — that sorts glass by colour before it is crushed and recycled. John's invention will make the glass-sorting process cheaper and increase the profits for his business.

He would like to commercialize his invention and is seeking advice from the office of applied research of his former college on how best to protect and commercialize the invention.

Session was excellent, challenging, and informative. It's clear and follows a logical flow. A must for all entrepreneurship students!

– participant from the George Brown College

AutoPaint

Trademarks v. domain names

Frank, a Canadian art dealer, purchases a machine that can automatically paint canvasses to appear human-made. The name of the machine is AutoPaintTM. He registered the Canadian domain name autopaint.ca and sold numerous paintings created by the machine. In doing so, he ignored a term of his contract with Charlie, the vendor, that states that the machine should not be used to produce art for resale.

Great experience, very informative, a good way of learning the theory through real-life situations.

– student from the Université de Moncton

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Access the complete series at: www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/casestudies

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