The University of Utah and the J. Willard Marriott Library have been a PTRC since 1984. The big news from Utah is that Dave Morrison celebrated his retirement in August 2017 with a festive event that included recognition from the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, VA, Rob Berry and his staff at the PTRC program, Molly Kocialski, Director of the Rocky Mountain Regional USPTO, University and Library administrators, faculty, staff, colleagues, and students. Highlights of Dave’s career include:
- Serving as the State’s and the University’s PTRC representative since 1987 as well as the 13th Patent Fellowship Librarian (1996-1998) at the USPTO.
- Outreach to the law schools at Utah and BYU, Vice President of Research office, Technology Venture Commercialization office, Center for Medical Innovation, and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.
- Honored by the University as Librarian, Emeritus. Dave continues to do outreach and provide support to the University community and his colleagues at the Marriott Library.
Image 1: Molly Kocialski, Director of the Rocky Mountain Regional USPTO, and Dave Morrison. Photo by Alfred Mowdood,
Inventors and entrepreneurs from across the state including patent recipients such as John Langell, Cindy Furse, Robert W. Hitchcock, Glenn Prestwich and others attended. Alex Carr, student, patent holder, and entrepreneur, presented Dave Morrison a pair of ski poles from Charpoles™.
Image 2: Dave Morrison receiving gifts including a set of Charpoles™ from Alberta Comer, University Librarian. Photo by Alfred Mowdood
In 2017, Alfred Mowdood became the PTRC representative after Dave Morrison retired. This past year has been a year of recognition, change, and growth.
Dave’s pioneering efforts at teaching, providing research assistance, and outreach continues. Since August, Alfred has either taught or co-taught classes for Research Education, College of Engineering, Health, and Business, workshops for our Bench 2 Bedside (B2B) students, undergraduate Innovation Scholars, as well as students in undergraduate and Honors courses such as “Biomedical Engineering Design” and “Innovation Roadmap.” Materials for some of these classes can be found on our Marriott Library Subject Guide. Alfred continues to work closely with our Innovation Team and the Marriott Library’s Creativity and Innovation Services team. On October 5, 2017, Alfred attended the China Intellectual Property (IP) Road Show and introduced himself to participants at this event.
The B2B program, our statewide medical device competition, continues to grow and expand. Dr. John Langell, Executive Director for the Center for Medical Innovation, noted that other universities and colleges worldwide are starting programs similar to this program. The 2017/2018 B2B competition event is expected to be the largest ever, with over fifty teams competing on the competition night at the Utah State Capital on April 9th, 2018.
In order to provide more support for innovation, entrepreneurship, and patent and trademarks, Tallie Casucci joined the Marriott Library on February 1st from the Eccles Health Sciences Library. Her duties and tasks include teaching semester long courses for the University’s highly ranked Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) program and liaison duties with our Bioengineering program and patent searching. It is expected that Tallie will attend the 41st PTRC Annual Training Seminar.
Image 3: Library Innovation Team (Jacob Reed, Jean Shipman, TJ Ferrill, Tallie Casucci, Erin Wimmer, Dave Morrison, and Alfred Mowdood). Since this picture was taken, both Jean and Dave have retired and Erin left the University. Not pictured: Ross McPhail. Photo by Eccles Health Science Library.
Salt Lake City Patent and Trademark Resource Center Report
Alfred Mowdood, Librarian and PTRC Representative
The University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9184-3035 [email protected]