l.georges online

Refer to the three most recent links in my twitter feed above for some revision of the principles of good slide making.

You need to have your slides ready for December 1st when we will be reviewing them as a group (Video Room in the languages department), so bring them on a key, preferably in pdf format.  This will enable us to annotate them together, on the computer, and help each of you to make the necessary adjustments for the final version of your presentation.

When you present, you will need to send me your presentation (as a pdf file) at least 24 hours beforehand.  You have until the final session (Jan 5th) to hand in your summary and review of the article you chose (this should be printed, and 1 to 2 sides of A4).

Question 1 : What is a Patent?

A patent is an intellectual property right, and is only valid in the country where the application was filed.  Patent law varies between countries, and there are many high-profile cases of firms taking others to court for infringement of a patent.  One of the most recent ‘patent wars’ in the news is between Apple and Samsung.
A patent is a technical description of an invention, and must present something novel and non-obvious.  Documents are often drafted and filed long before they are used in a real project or product, and the application process can be long and time-consuming.  A specialist in patent law is consulted to make sure that all risks are covered.

Question 2 : What is the structure of a patent application?

A typical patent will contain
(1) Reference information (authors, dates, numbers…)
(2) an abstract describing the broad outline of the patent (Note that this type of abstract is radically different from that of a typical research article.  Here the authors don’t describe context, but go straight into describing the invention)
(3) any relevant figures and diagrams (all labelled and referred to in 5)
(4) A textual description stating the field of application, the background (explaining the need) and a summary stating point by point the details of the invention
(5) A textual explanation of all figures
(6) A detailed description linking the summary and figures as they relate to the claim (Definition of a claim in this context : the part of a patent (or patent application) that defines in technical terms the scope of protection granted by the patent. The claims are extremely important in case of prosecution or litigation.)

Today’s objective is to give you the tools you need to make an informed decision about how to deal with the illustrations in your chosen article when you prepare your PowerPoint presentation.

You will first see a presentation about data and slides.

Then you will download this article, and in pairs work on either Table III, or Tables IV, V & VI combined.  It will be up to you to decide how best to show the data on a slide, and to choose which parts of the table seem most interesting, and which can be omitted.
Send it to me at the end of the session (export it as a PDF please)

PDF of today’s presentation