Entrepreneurial experiences and intellectual property: A student perspective

Abstract

This paper analyzes engineering student experiences in an interdisciplinary entrepreneurial senior project course. The paper will study and discuss how the outcome of the search for intellectual property is utilized to develop and enhance the fostering and building of the entrepreneurial mindset and experience. This Academic Model allows each student to participate in a process that embraces the importance of documenting and validating product ideas using real world techniques and tools. The student's entrepreneurial learning experience is well grounded and always begins with a patent search using the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This paper will demonstrate the value of understanding this process and a body of applied engineering knowledge that is available in the quest to obtain a patent. Students' experiences and outcomes are documented through individual interviews and assessment tools. The constraints and challenges of developing a product, engineering it and preparing it to be marketed will be presented in this paper. Real world entrepreneurial experiences are valuable lesson and an integral part of the entrepreneurial mindset learning experience. Real world entrepreneurial learning experiences are linked to each student E-Team as they move their product idea through the validation process. The patent search might lead to discovered work that is so close, overlap or even is a replica of the team preliminary product idea. In these cases, they cannot continue with their preliminary product idea and must become innovative. This practice illustrates a valuable lesson which integrates with other components of the entrepreneurial learning experience. Learning on how to manage failure is a key ingredient of building the entrepreneurial mindset. Students from five entrepreneurial senior project teams have been interviewed and their individual learning experiences will be used in this paper. The student perspective and their assessment will provide the documentation of the value of understanding and using intellectual property in delivering the entrepreneurial engineering education curriculum. This paper is a serious attempt to study an educational model through analyzing the feedback from students who lived the experience. The paper consists of three parts. 1. Paper Objective: The paper is an attempt to study the effect of "pattern search" on the entrepreneurial mindset. The study will analyze the academic model that we believe is a successful avenue to help students in engineering programs. The pattern search process is practiced through this academic model. We will investigate different variables of the academic model used to create the entrepreneurial mindset. 2. Academic Model: The academic model is innovative in engineering education; it combines many educational and learning input variables such as theory, practice, creativity, business experiences, manufacturing processes, marketing and team work to create engineering graduates with entrepreneurial mindset. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.