In another class this term, using a novel actively-morphing tip design, your team developed a concept for an exceptionally quiet helicopter blade, fabricated and flown a proof-of-concept scale model, and created a consolidated engineering development and marketing plan for the design. You earned an “A” on the project along with accolades and encouragement from your professor to publish your paper in a scholarly journal.
What started out as wild brainstorming now looks to you like a real possibility, one with a great potential for military and civilian applications that could really launch your careers.
1) What legal techniques are generally used to protect intellectual property?
2) You are concerned that if your paper is published, you will lose control of your idea. Have you lost the opportunity to use any of these by submitting your paper to your professor? Will you lose control of your intellectual property if your paper is published? Explain.
3) Is there a way to protect your intellectual property rights in the product before the paper is published? If so, describe.
4) Among yourselves, you’ve been calling the blade the “Silent Knife.” Can you protect that name? If so, how?
5) Recognizing that an extremely quiet helicopter would be particularly attractive for use by special operations forces engaged in activities such as the bin Laden raid, you’d like to trademark the silhouette of the famed WWII Fairbairn fighting knife (which often appears in special ops insignia) for use in connection with this product. Would that be possible?
6) Can you patent your invention? If so, explain the requirements and process.
7) You need to attract some investment capital to enable you to build and test full-scale examples of the blade design and patent it, but potential investors (including Lockheed Martin Sikorsky, Bell Helicopters, and Airbus Helicopters) first want to see what you’ve done, so far, and understand the idea. Is there a way you can safely reveal it to them without having first applied for the patent? If so, describe.