Madison, WI

Wendt Commons Library serves the UW College of Engineering, Computer Science, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, and Statistics. The library has been a PTDL/PTRC since 1976.

The PTRC representative is Nancy Spitzer. Jody Hoesly, who is Wendt’s Assistant Director for Information Services, also specializes in patent and trademark information.

Nancy taught patents searching in undergraduate and graduate classes in engineering professional development, engineering mechanics and astronautics, biological systems engineering, microbiology and a Masters in Biotechnology program. She once again partnered with a business faculty member in a class on Technology Entrepreneurship with two sessions on patent and trademark searching. Jody worked with Engineering faculty revising the senior design curriculum to provide more online resources for library sessions. She spear-headed a Wendt staff project to create modules in the Moodle course management system for patents, standards, component parts and materials, market data and more. The module for patents contains videos on patent basics, and a Camtasia video Jody created on patent searching.

On September 17th -18th the Madison PTRC helped sponsor a visit of the USPTO team of specialists for a First Inventor to File Roadshow. Madison PTRC staff made local arrangements for the lecture hall, AV needs and publicity in partnership with the State Bar of Wisconsin Intellectual Property Division, the Law School and WARF (the UW technology transfer organization). Working on publicity for this event helped broaden our contacts on and off campus. Nancy enjoyed working with the PTO logistics staff and with the presentation team once in Madison.

In January Jody held a patent searching workshop for local high school students in an Engineering Design and Development class, as part of Project Lead the Way.