How Jefferson Guides Students Through the Intellectual Property Process

“It’s extremely important to teach fashion students about licensing, the risks of copyright infringement and how it varies for brands all over the world so they can avoid negative consequences,” Bennur says. “It’s a big concern for recent grads.”

Fashion design consists of colors, symbols and patterns that are easy to replicate, whether intentionally or accidentally, she says. “I want my students to connect their work to the real world, consider these processes when they’re designing and have the tools to protect themselves against copyright infringement.”

She explains that IP processes vary greatly in different parts of the world, especially between Europe, Asia and the United States. “Many of our students are international, so a lot of them will find jobs in different countries and will need to be familiar with a set of copyright laws different from those in the U.S.,” Bennur says.

In the course, each student investigates the copyright laws in a country of their choice. This makes the teachings more applicable to her students’ lives and allows other students to learn about fashion globally from their peers. Bennur also guides students for careers with some of the world’s biggest brands, like Adidas and Nike, and asks students to use their knowledge of IP to create licensing strategies on a large scale.

“It’s a unique learning experience—one that will prepare our students for their careers in the real world, no matter where they go,” she says.

Form Follows Function
Unlike fashion students, industrial design students learn to patent products because of their function rather than their look or design. “Great American architect Louis Sullivan declared that ‘form follows function,’ and good design often seamlessly unites how a thing works with how it looks,” says Tod Corlett, director of the BS and MS in industrial design programs. “In our program, our students design innovative, fully functional ideas and products all the time, so we teach them how to protect their own IP.”

Some industrial design students take steps to protect their own IP during their graduate capstone projects or in programs like JeffSolves MedTech. The medical technology program brings together medical and industrial design students to create products, like medical devices, for urgent healthcare problems.

“JeffSolves challenges our students to come up with innovative solutions to extremely complex, real-life challenges,” says Eric Schneider, assistant professor of industrial design. “It also teaches them to collaborate with multiple departments and disciplines within design. Many of these students continue with their projects after the program ends because they’ve generated valuable IP that can become a profitable company or license.”

Open-Source Altruism
While some students choose to patent their designs or claim them as their own IP, others release them as open source so anyone may use them, says Schneider, who describes one project in development.

“A group of graduate students are developing assistive devices for people with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), a rare disease where patients gradually lose mobility,” he says. “Some of these students are looking at creating a kit of parts that act as extension tools for everyday tasks, like grooming and dressing. They hope to make this kit easy to distribute all over the world and allow the design files to be downloadable so they can be 3D printed anywhere. This is being done in partnership with the IFOPA, an international advocacy organization for the FOP patient population.”

[Main photo credit: iStock.com/Edwin Tan]