IP Clinic Overview

Intellectual Property (IP) Clinic

The IP Clinic is a collaborative effort between the university’s Center of Excellence in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEE&I), Center of Excellence in Cybersecurity Research, Education and Outreach (CREO), Center of Excellence in Product Design and Advanced Manufacturing (CEPDAM), and the office of IP Development and Commercialization. 

The clinic is designed to foster a collaborative environment of innovation, entrepreneurship, invention, and creativity throughout campus and is designed to be the go-to resource for any IP questions in the student community. It assists in helping students and employees transform their own personal innovations into IP assets that can benefit their entrepreneurial path.  

The IP Clinic hosts presentations by invited inventors, entrepreneurs, and IP attorneys. In addition, office hours are available to enable students to schedule meetings with IP attorneys and subject matter experts, each of whom can advise innovators on the patentability and best practices for aligning patent protection with business development. It provides training on IP protection to students who want to be peer advisors. 

Those who engage with the IP Clinic can expect to learn about what patents are all about and how to transform their ideas into a patent application. The clinic has established the NC A&T Patent Fund, which provides support for select students to submit a provisional patent application to the US Patent and Trademark Office.