1. Engineers want to invent and patent

Engineers and scientists have the education and training to invent, and their inventions could become income-producing businesses for them as well as for wealthy investors. When you ask an engineering student or an engineer, "what do engineers do?" They often respond by saying engineers solve problems, fix problems, design things, model things and systems, create mathematical models, and many other things along the same lines. They rarely consider themselves to be inventors.
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Desire for inventing and patenting know-how
In fall 2017 and spring 2018, I surveyed engineering students in two different Auburn University engineering classes about their interest in inventing and patenting.
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Table 1: SURVEY
Interest in inventing and patenting
among engineering students 
Auburn University 2017-2018
Number surveyed and responses = n = 45
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Question                                                                  
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1. Are you an inventor?  Yes-10     No-34 (75%) 
2. Want to be an inventor?            Yes-42 (93%) 
3. Know how to write/get patent? No-40 (89%)
4. Can afford a patent attorney?   No-41 (91%)
5. Like to apply Patent yourself?  Yes-42 (93%)
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​The survey’s results in Table 1 are very revealing.

1. Question 1, 34 (75%) out of 45 were not inventors.
2. Question 2, 42 (93%) out of 45 want to be inventors. 
3. Question 3, 89% do not know how to write or get a patent.
4. Question 5, 93% want to write and patent their inventions.

From the table, the pent-up demand among our engineering students to invent and secure affordable patents for their inventions is a strong message to engineers and their teachers.

In the US, the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) allows AFFORDABLE patent applications by individual pro se inventor-applicants (pro se applicants apply for patents themselves without the services of patent attorneys). I will address how this done in a future Blog post.

Several chapters of my book, Engineering Entrepreneurship from Idea to Business Plan teach inventing and affordable patenting as pro se patent applicants.​

See this book on Amazon.com