An excellent text for clients to read before meeting with attorneys so they'll understand the fundamentals of patent, copyright, trade secret, trademark, mask work, and unfair competition laws. This is not a "do-it-yourself" manual but rather a ready reference tool for inventors or creators that will generate maximum efficiencies in obtaining, preserving and enforcing their intellectual property rights. It explains why they need to secure the services of IPR attorneys. Coverage includes employment contracts, including the ability of engineers to take confidential and secret knowledge to a new job, shop rights and information to help an entrepreneur establish a non-conflicting enterprise when leaving their prior employment. Sample forms of contracts, contract clauses, and points to consider before signing employment agreements are included. Coverage of copyright, software protection, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as well as the procedural variances in international intellectual property laws and procedures.

To advance education about ICT standardization, comprehensive and up-to-date teaching materials must be available. With the support of the European Commission, ETSI has developed this textbook to facilitate education on ICT standardization, and to raise the knowledge level of ICT standardization-related topics among lecturers and students in higher education, in particular in the fields of engineering, business administration and law. Readers of this book are not required to have any previous knowledge about standardization. They are introduced firstly to the key concepts of standards and standardization, different elements of the ecosystem and how they interact, as well as the procedures required for the production of standardization documents. Then, readers are taken to the next level by addressing aspects related to standardization such as innovation, strategy, business, and economics. This textbook is an attempt to make ICT standardization accessible and understandable to students. It covers the essentials that are required to get a good overview of the field. The book is organized in chapters that are self-contained, although it would be advantageous to read the book from cover to cover. Each chapter begins with a list of learning objectives and key messages. The text is enriched with examples and case studies from real standardization practice to illustrate the key theoretical concepts. Each chapter also includes a quiz to be used as a self-assessment learning activity. Furthermore, each book chapter includes a glossary and lists of abbreviations and references. Alongside the textbook, we have produced a set of slides that are intended to serve as complementary teaching materials in face-to-face teaching sessions. For all interested parties there is also an electronic version of the textbook as well as the accompanying slides that can be downloaded for free from the ETSI website (www.etsi.org/standardization-education).

M. C. Roco and W.S. Bainbridge In the early decades of the 21st century, concentrated efforts can unify science based on the unity of nature, thereby advancing the combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging in human abilities, societal technologies could achieve a tremendous improvement outcomes, the nation's productivity, and the quality of life. This is a broad, cross cutting, emerging and timely opportunity of interest to individuals, society and humanity in the long term. The phrase "convergent technologies" refers to the synergistic combination of four major "NBIC" (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience. Timely and Broad Opportunity. Convergence of diverse technologies is based on material unity at the nanoscale and on technology integration from that scale.

Inventions, such as new tools, devices, processes, and medicines, have provided significant benefits to society. Inventions help people around the world live longer, healthier, and more-productive lives and provide new ways to build, move, communicate, heal, learn, and play. Understanding and clearly communicating the value of invention can help policymakers appreciate the benefits of supporting the development of inventions and of addressing inequities that suppress the development of female and minority inventors. In this report, researchers use the inventions of Lemelson-MIT Prize winners as examples to illustrate the scientific, technological, economic, and social impacts that inventions can have on society. The impacts of this group's inventions are considered through evaluation of all prize winners in aggregate and through individual case studies of the prize winners from three particular years. Researchers highlight the substantial benefits to society, both nationally and globally, that have been provided by these inventors' works. The inventions discussed in this report have spawned new products, companies, and, in some cases, entirely new industries. Research also demonstrates that there are many different paths to the successful development and commercialization of inventions, with the success or failure of new inventions not always being entirely under the inventor's control.