AME 44590 Course Syllabus, Summer 2011
Instructor
Bill Goodwine
- 3.04 London Centre
- bill@controls.ame.nd.edu
- Office hours: Class Days, 12:30-1:30 or by appointment
Time and Place
- MTWRF 8:30-10:30
- Gallery
Course Web Page
Grading
- Your grade in this course will be based on quizzes and in-class participation:
- Class Participation: 25%
- Quizzes: 75%
- Guaranteed grades:
- (overall grade > mean + 1.5 stdev) OR (overall grade > 90%): A-
- (overall grade > mean + 0.5 stdev) OR (overall grade > 80%): B-
- (overall grade > mean - 1.0 stdev) OR (overall grade > 70%): C-
- (overall grade > mean - 2.0 stdev) OR (overall grade > 60%): D
Homework, Class, Projects and Examination Policies
- Any student missing a quiz without a prior excuse will receive a grade of zero for that exam. Any student missing class without a prior excuse will receive a zero for class participation for that day.
- There will be daily reading assignments.
- There will be daily quizzes. The material for the quiz will be based on the reading assigned for that day as well as the material covered in the previous class period.
- I will try to call on at least ten students, chosen at random, each day.
Some Student and Professor Obligations
I consider it part of my job to make it as easy as possible for you to develop a mature and sophisticated understanding of intellectual property law and its implications for engineering. As such, I am happy to answer any and all questions you may have (or to direct you to others, if I think they could do so better) as many times as is necessary to help further this goal, provided that you meet your similar obligation to make a substantive and mature effort to achieve the same goal. Hence:
- If you regularly attend class, are not disruptive, make an effort to make class time productive for yourself and others, outside of class study the material and regularly complete the assignments, I will make every effort to promptly respond to any communication addressed to me.
- If you skip class, are generally disruptive, inattentive, surfing the web, completing other coursework, reading the paper, doing the crossword puzzle, etc., I will answer your questions at a time that is convenient for me, which may be never. If you ask questions regarding administrative matters, e.g., test coverage, that I already announced in class, I will not answer them.
The rationale for this policy is to both manage my workload as well as to prepare you for the realities of the professional world.
Subject Outline
The topics considered in this course include the following topics. Each will be approximately one week each, not necessarily in this order.
- Introduction, the U.S. Court System, types of laws, USPTO, the U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the nature of property and patent resources
- Nonobviousness
- Infringement
- The Patent Document
- Novelty
- Utility
- Patentable Subject Matter
- Foreign and Domestic Priority
- The Patent Application
- Inventor Eligibility
- Anticipation
- Prior Art
- International Aspects
Reading Material
Most of the reading assignments is linked to the course subject outline page.
Resources
- Westlaw:
- Go to http://www.library.nd.edu/
- Click the Databases tab
- Click on W
- Click on Westlaw Campus Research
- Click on the Law tab in the upper left
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- http://www.google.com/patents
- http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
- Editing mediawiki pages: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents
- http://dictionary.law.com/
- U.S. Constitution
- On-line U.S. Code
- On-line Code of Federal Regulations
- Federal Courts web page
- Manual of Patent Examining Procedure