PATENT INTEREST IN YOUNG ENGINEERS 

-Ganesh Subramainam, IP Dome

At Sairam Engineering

            The IP Dome team visited several department projects at Sairam Engineering College (Sairam), including projects of the departments of Instrumentation and Control Engineering (ICE), Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering (EIE), Information Technology (IT), Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE), Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Production. 

Sample Sairam Projects

            Overall Sairam students were extremely eager on demonstrating the real world applicability of their projects. For example, one Civil Engineering Project we looked at was on using new materials comprising chopped mats for pothole repair. Another Civil Engineering project used a novel combination of cement, amino silica and peridotite to be used in road structures to absorb carbon monoxide. In the ECE department the students showed us a vertical takeoff aircraft project for multipurpose surveillance. We also observed an ultrasound image-processing project to be used to select dense wood trees. In the Mechanical Engineering department we viewed the results of a novel thermal barrier coating developed to reduce heat loss in IC engines. 

            Many projects were prototypes requiring additional work. Others could be applied to market directly. For example, a voice based object recognition tool developed by the IT department is to be used at Andhra Bank branches to aid the visually challenged in detecting currency notes.

IP Dome Insights

1. Disappointingly, some projects were completely lacking in real world usage and application.
2. Many of the projects we saw were at the proof of concept stage. Almost none were market ready.
3. Some of the inventions were currently outliers to the trend requiring several iterations to be market ready. For example, as determined by IP Dome, wearable computing is in trend since 2009. There, for the IT department project of blind vision object and character recognition system to be commercially exploitable, even if market ready, further work needs to be done.
4. Many of the projects would more likely be patentable if the students coordinated their work with specialists and professionals in the field. For instance IP Dome can assist in connecting students with service specialists in telemedicine, as well inform students on government regulatory mechanisms which need to be followed.
5. Another area IP Dome can assist is by collaborating and sharing information among Sairam’s several departments. For example, IP Dome can work to integrate the findings of the Mechanical Engineering with the findings of the EIE magnetic crawling robot
6. Finally, some of the projects would gain if they considered a broader scope of technology applications. For example, the EIE cadaver management system, would find greater chances of patentability if it also considered diverse applications such as car parking, hotel reservations, hospital bed allocation, etc.

www.ipdome.in