IEEE S-PAC was a Success

Garson Ho, EUSS VP Events

On Friday, October 27th, the Student Branches of the IEEE at SFU and UBC collaborated in sponsoring the IEEE S-PAC (Student Professional Awareness Conference) at SFU in the Halpern Centre. The purpose of the S-PAC is to give engineering students the opportunity to obtain some insight into a certain aspect of being a professional engineer. The topic of this year's S-PAC was "Innovation and Invention", with a focus on how to use patents to protect ideas developed in the workplace.

We offered invitations to many members of industry, and in the end, we were fortunate enough to have Paul Girard (President of Seanix Technolgy), Blake Wiggs (Patent Lawyer with Oyen, Wiggs, Green, and Mutala), Dan Gelbart (President of Creo Products, Inc.), and Ron Simmer (PatScan, UBC) present at the S-PAC.

Paul Girard spoke on emerging technologies in the PC industry, especially in relation to his company, Seanix. Blake Wiggs explained how to read a patent, and went over the main parts of a patent. Dan Gelbart went over some of the practical uses of a patent _ how many people use it to protect their ideas or to keep others from suing them. He also gave several humourous examples of patents for perpetual motion machines, which were disguised under the title of a "magnetic propulsion device." Finally, Ron Simmer talked about the specifics on how and where to do a patent search. Typically, it costs about $3500, and can go as high as $11,000 to patent an invention in several countries internationally.

I'd like to thank everyone who attended the S-PAC this year and helped to make it a success! Special thanks go out to Jin Ng and the ENSC department for their help in booking rooms and arranging for parking for the speakers.

For those who were unable to attend the S-PAC, we videotaped it, and plan on showing it at an upcoming IEEE-sponsored social. Look for announcements about the upcoming IEEE Christmas Party! And keep checking the IEEE board (in the pit downstairs, beside the light board) for the latest announcements, contests, seminars, etc.!

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