Last Assignment: Part 3 of 4

What I learned in this class:: 

After reflecting on this class, I think I would split what I learned in this class into three different components: patents, the interdisciplinary nature of patenting, and the importance of social media.

1. PATENTS
As the class suggests and the reason I decided to take this course - I learned a lot about patents in this class!

I now understand the basics about what makes something patentable, namely that it must be useful, novel, and non-obvious.
In deciphering what this actually means, it helped to think about what is then not patentable. I found examples of this:
- Laws of nature: existed before you were born
- Physical phenomena
- Abstract ideas
- Algorithms: 1981, the way you can patent this is by patenting a hardware machine that includes the algorithm by its memory

I feel like I know the essentials of what goes into a patent now! I know the official terms now that I can Google to learn about more details involving patents. 

2. INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF PATENTING

I learned that patents do not just involve one discipline, i.e. the discipline that the patent comes from. Instead, law is always involved and really dictates how a patent is written, how it can be protected, and how there can be trials for infringement using the law. In fact, one of our guest speakers said that lawyers rule our patenting system, because they are the ones that write the supporting legislation. I definitely agree with this! 

Further example of this? The KSR case study we examined:

- KSR argues that Teleflex patent is not patentable because it is obvious

- pushing car can be both manual or automatic 

- adding a sensor to the pedal is not patentable because it is obvious
Most important part of claim – part d.) an electronic control for providing a signal, rather than a mechanical control 

- KSR won by district court initially, but Teleflex won in appeals court by relying on TSM test, finally Supreme Court won again à said that TSM is wrong method
TSM = teaching, suggestion, motivation in the prior art to combine elements in the prior art in order to find a patent obvious
- Supreme Court’s decision changed the patent system that existed for at least 50 years, said that the appeals court made their decision by interpreting the patent too literally (rigid and formalistic way)
*You must think about common sense, as described by the law. 

3. IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA 

Finally, our use of blogs, YouTube videos, and Twitter proved that social media can play a pivotal role in learning and collaborating between students and teachers in the classroom. As I mentioned in my two previous posts and by students during our last class, these social media tools really solidified our understanding of the content in this class and allowed us to channel our creativity into how we wanted to learn in this class. This idea of bringing social media into the classroom was very unique to this particular Berkeley course I have taken, and I have to say — it was a very positive experience!

Thank you, Professor Lavian for your unique and dedicated way of teaching!