DSN Patent Attorney Elizabeth Herbst Schierman headed back to high school on May 4^th, 2010 to speak to the juniors and seniors at the Meridian Technical Charter High School about the basics of intellectual property law. Ms. Schierman, who has often shared such information with Chemical Engineering college students at the University of Idaho, was happy to get an opportunity to introduce IP concepts to students at the high school level.

Each year, seniors at MTCHS take on the role of entrepreneurs and develop plans and strategies for hypothetically creating their own start-up businesses. Ms. Schierman was asked to speak with the seniors, who had completed this project, and the juniors, who look forward to their entrepreneurial endeavors next year, about the IP-related concerns that they should keep in mind during the project and in their other future business-related endeavors. Topics discussed included how one should go about identifying and protecting one’s own intellectual property rights and the ever-important topic of how to avoid violating the IP rights of others. Some of these best-practices tips are included in the following handout, which was given to the MTCHS students.