News from Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
I am Connie Wu, Engineering and Patent Information Specialist at Rutgers University in NJ.
As the Representative for USPTO’s Patent and Trademark Resources Centers Program, I have been extremely busy with patron trainings, references, database searching and answering AAL and Ref Chat question about IP. Based on reference statistical report, I was on the top of Off Desk Reference among science librarians. For example, out of 172 total off reference desk questions answered by LSM librarians between Jan 2019 and Dec, 2019 I provided answers to 81 questions, most of them are related to IP questions. Most of questions and training needed more than one hour to accomplish. I was also invited to provide a number of lectures on IP and patent search for 300 engineering ethic class, Engineering research class and foreign professor training program at Rutgers
May 9, 2019 marked the 30-year anniversary for RUL becoming one of 83 USPTO’s Patent and Trademark Resources Centers in the United States. I planned a two day public and librarian training conference in Sept. 2019. I work with USPTO and reached out to the University Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), School of Engineering, Rutgers Business School, and The Thomas Edison Papers to organize the program for Rutgers community and the state residents to promote patent invention and the Resource Center. More than 100 people signed up for the event and 78 people attended three sessions. After the conference, IP director at OTC asked me to give a training to her 20 staff for CPC patent classification training right away.