THE THEOREM PROJECT

THEOREM – youTH intEllectual prOpeRty Education prograM is a dissemination project to promote and raise knowledge and awareness on Intellectual Property (IP) and the respect of IP rights in the context of creative industries and high‐tech start‐ups.

The Project lasted 12 months (March 2018 – March 2019) and was co-founded by the European Union Intellectual Property Office-EUIPO, GR/001/17, Lot 2: Reaching to younger generation and citizen Application reference n° 077.

The Project activities ended with a closing event on 27^th February 2019, Politecnico di Milano, Milan.

Partners

• Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, (project coordinator)
• Politecnico di Milano – Technology Transfer Office,
• PoliHub – Innovation District and Startup Accelerator.

Targets

University students, young researchers, young future entrepreneurs and start-uppers (15-30 years) of creative industries and high‐tech start‐ups, with special attention to students coming from the Engineering, Architecture and Design academic courses of the Universities of Milan and Lombardy.

Main activities

• An IP Awareness Program made of six live training half-day events (April-October 2018) held in Milan to promote and increase sensibility on Intellectual Property. Each event was focused on target IP topic: Design, Software and Copyright, Patents for invention, Trademarks, Free-on-line Databases for IP searches, IP for start-ups. Each event consisted of:
  • a Training session (entry/beginner level) held by IP experts;
  • a Debate and Experiences session with the attendance of influencers/disseminators of scientific culture, university experts, startups & entrepreneurs, enterprises & companies;
  • the realization of a video, with educational objectives and recap of the event.
• An Intellectual Property Game Storm (30^th October 2018, Polihub, Milan): a stimulating idea generation workshop, where all the participants, supported by IP experts, Game Designers and other facilitators worked together and competed to design and formulate storytelling games for the promotion of patent protection culture.
• The development of an interactive web-application IP Game named Try it again, Karl!, based on the concept of a narrative story formulated during the IP Rights Game Storm;
• The execution of a handbook (40 pages) on how to manage IP rights in the context of a start-up Intellectual Property for startups;
• A Closing Event (27th February 2019, Politecnico di Milano, Milan): Intellectual Property as a tool for competing for companies and start-ups, to share the Project results and communicate actions and opportunities related to Intellectual Property that can be undertaken to boost the growth and competitive edge of new entrepreneurship and companies.

Participation in the Project events was free-of-charge.

Project Outputs

• The slides of the IP experts of each of the Training Sessions, as entry level educational material on the main IP topics;
• Training videos (12 minutes) and a recap of all the events:
  • 6 video summaries of the IP Awareness;
  • The video referred to the IP Rights Game Storm workshop;
  • The video referred to the Closing Event;
  • The video summary of the handbook “Intellectual Property for start-ups” (in Italian).
• The handbook “Intellectual Property for start-ups”. (in Italian);
• A web-app interactive game on the IP rights, Try it again, Karl!: a narrative game with educational as well as entertaining goals, which takes inspiration from a historical event that is particularly suggestive and focused on how to protect target technical invention, its promotion through international patent filings and the licensing action.

The above materials are freely available (currently in the Italian Language) in the project website.