How to be a Prolific Inventor

Course details

A prolific inventor is not just measured by the number of patents being generated, but by how his or her patents truly generate revenues for the business. A prolific inventor has a big picture of the patent value chain and how patents can become a critical part of a company’s asset. This tutorial will empower inventors with needed knowledge to be able to play a major role in the monetization of innovation, whether in a corporation or as an individual entrepreneur.

The tutorial includes downloadable "Course Notes" containing a transcript of all audio from the tutorial.

Earn an IEEE Certificate of Completion

Once you've completed all lectures and have passed the final quiz with a score of 70% or better, request your certificate of completion from IEEE, good for 1 Professional Development Hour or .3 Continuing Education Units, available at no extra charge.

Course Author

Matthew Ma holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Northeastern U. of USA. He also holds a M.S. and B.S., both in electrical and computer engineering, from State Univ. of New York Buffalo and Tsinghua University Beijing, respectively.

Dr. Ma has a unique background that combines extensive scientific research experience with diversified patent training and licensing experience. He has 15 years industrial research experience primarily in consumer electronics, in which he was a senior scientists and program manager at Panasonic research company in US for 11 years. Since then he has transitioned to intellectual property and has played various roles as patent analyst, directors of IP operations and strategy. He had held the position of Director of Intellectual Property at SRI International in Silicon Valley before he founded his current company Scientific Works USA, which focuses on IP training and helping entrepreneurs and individual inventors with patent filing.

Dr. Ma has authored several books including “Fundamentals of Patenting and Licensing for Scientists and Engineers” published by World Scientific, 2009. This book has been featured on IEEE Spectrum and has been adopted by several universities, such as UC Berkeley, as text books for entrepreneurship and innovation courses.

Dr. Ma holds 14 U.S. patents, is an IEEE senior member, and is also an associated editor of International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence (IJPRAI). He is the co-chair of the first and second International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Processing (WMMP) in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He is a frequent speaker at IEEE consultant networks and other entrepreneurship events, a member of Intellectual Property Owner Association and a patent agent admitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.