Alpine, TX – On Thursday, March 31, 2022, Sul Ross University will host an intellectual property workshop for inventors, small business owners and artists.  The full-day workshop will be conducted by lawyers and personnel from the Intellectual Property Law Section of the State Bar of Texas (IP Section), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts (TALA).

Over the past four years, volunteer attorneys from the IP Section, in collaboration with the USPTO, have presented these educational workshops on how to protect the intellectual capital of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and inventors located in underserved communities throughout Texas.

These full-day workshops are broken into three sessions. The first session is an educational session designed to provide an overview and introduction to intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, and is typically led by intellectual property lawyers who specialize in that specific area of the law. USPTO personnel also introduce stakeholders to the patent and trademark application process, including a step-by-

step demonstration of how to file a patent or trademark application and how to search freely-available internet resources so that the stakeholders can have a better idea about whether their invention is patentable or if their brand is available for trademark use.

The second session is a break-out session with four concurrent tracks—software, mechanical/electrical inventions, consumer products and art. The purpose of these break-out sessions is to enable participants to work with attorneys and USPTO personnel specializing in their technical or business area, and also allow stakeholders with similar backgrounds to ask questions and share common experiences.

The final session consists of 20-minute one-on-one consultations between lawyers and the participants. During these confidential sessions, the volunteer attorney provides free individualized legal assistance to the inventor, entrepreneur or artists on a particular problem or issue.

Please contact Dr. Robert Muñoz at (432) 837-8556 or access the QR code if you are interested in attending the workshop.