Georgia Tech PTRC was designated in 1946. At least seven librarians have served as a PTRC representative since then. Lisha Li is the current PTRC Representative and patent librarian.
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Georgia Tech Library becoming a Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC), we organized a patent exhibit on campus in Oct. 2016. This exhibit was also highlighted during the day-long seminar: Patents and Trademarks: Get the Information You Need to Protect Your Intellectual Property, when Tom Turner and Jim Bettinger from the PTRCP office presented several informative sessions on patents and trademarks to students, researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs. Tom and Jim also provided a patent session to the mechanical engineering capstone class, as well as a half day IP refresher course for librarians.
As a part of the Georgia Tech Library’s five year renewal project, the majority of the library collections have been relocated to the Library Services Center (LSC), a high density storage and services facility off campus, shared with the Emory University libraries. Most librarians have been relocated elsewhere on campus in 2016. With all the changes, Georgia Tech PTRC continued offering patent and trademark consultation services and regular patent search classes every month to meet the needs from campus as well as from the community. In Fall 2016, Lisha was invited by faculty members from the Scheller College of Business’s TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) Program to teach a patent class at the Emory campus.
In Dec., 2016, Lisha was invited by the Edge Connections – women’s business center to attend the Makers and Micro Business Expo 2016 in Atlanta. We set up a table to distribute patent and trademark brochures and to answer various questions from participating inventors and entrepreneurs.
Collaborating with the PTRCP office and the USPTO, the Georgia Tech PTRC will be hosting a trademark for business seminar on March 30, 2017. Mr. Craig Morris will be on campus to talk to students, entrepreneurs, and professionals on the importance of trademarks and how to apply for a trademark registration followed by questions and answers.