Akron, OH

The Akron Summit County Public Library has been a PTRC since 1995. The patent information is located in the Science and Technology Division of the Main Library. It has been a busy year here at the Akron PTRC. The biggest news from last year was that we embraced the Maker Movement a second time by hosting our second Mini Maker Faire. Overall, we had over 37 Makers participate in our Maker Faire, showing the public “what they make”. We almost doubled our attendance from last year and had 1500 people attend this year’s Maker Faire. Our library is also celebrating its 20th year of being a PTRC and we are welcoming representatives from the Patent and Trademark Office as part of as part of our two day celebration. We continue to teach intellectual property classes on a regular basis, one general class on the various types of intellectual property and our ever popular Patent Searching Class. We are starting something new this year. We are having a quarterly series of sessions called “Ask A Patent Attorney”, where inventors and entrepreneurs get the opportunity to talk to a patent attorney for a free one on one 20 min session. We continue to work with two local inventor groups, Inventors Council of Greater Cleveland and The Canton Inventors Association, attending their meetings and offering our services as a PTRC. Staff wise, our Patent team is Michele McNeal, Monique Mason and myself.