BME 180A - Biomedical Design - Fall 2022: Engineering Resources

Remember, Technical Standards are an established norm or requirement. It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and practices. The documents prepared by a professional group or committee which are believed to be good and proper engineering practices and which contain mandatory requirements. The contain “how to” instructions for designers, manufacturers, and users. Standards promote safety, reliability, productivity, and efficiency in almost every industry that relies on engineering components or equipment. Standards can run from a few paragraphs to hundreds of pages, and are written by experts with knowledge and expertise in a particular field who sit on many committees.

You will have to use standards from different sources:

1.  Class related Standards are in ANSI Standards Connect -  you will find ISO 14971, 2d ed, 2007, Medical Devices there and others; click on View My Documents and then scroll through the documents and click on View.  You can search the document for specific terms or coverage by entering "CTRL F"

2.  Other COVID related documents are also available from other sources.

2.  ASTM Standards & Engineering Digital Library  - to be searched - for F04.15

3.  Check in your Canvas source for other standards from ANSI

For additional information about standards and specifications, please consult Standards Guide or contact Engineering Librarian

For visual images you may want to consult sources such as the following sources or consult the Visual Arts: Images Resource Guide and make sure that you have proper rights to use or copy images - that they are Open Access or not copyrighted::

For background information, the Patent FAQ may answer some basic questions.  Use a Patent Glossary if you need help with definitions.  Patents appear to be outlined with numbers - these are Standard Field Codes or "INID codes" for international agreed numbers for the identification of bibliographic data and are consistent with patents from around the world. A review of how to read a patent will be helpful.

• Drawings - each figure is numbered and explained  - sometimes they are broken up into several sub-figures and they can also show a 3D view with parts numbered for identification.
• Specification - the basic text but does not include the claims.  Provides the summary of the invention and describes the drawings.
• Claims - the most important part of a patent - often written in legalistic style.  Two types of claims: Independent & Dependent where the latter only has meaning when combined with a preceding claim and the former claim stands alone.  Usually the broadest claims of the patent are at the top or front of the list of what the patent is supposed to achieve or do. 

PATENT RESOURCES - the following sources are highly recommended but for additional direction, please consult the Subject Guide for Patents - you will be restricting your searches to US Patents and there is a box there for how to read & understand a patent. 

New to Patent searching?  See this important information about searching for patents:

How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy - Web Based Tutorial (38 minutes)

For additional information, become familiar with the following:

• Patent Basics
• Patent Searching

• The Seven Step Strategy - Outlines a suggested procedure for patent searching

  • How to Conduct a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search: A Step by Step Strategy 

• Search patents:

  • Quick Search
  • Advanced Search
  • Patent Number Search

The following sources are highly recommended but for additional direction, please consult the Subject Guide for Patents - you will be restricting your searches to US Patents and there is a box there for how to read & understand a patent. The unique identifier for a patent is the Patent number - the higher the number the more recently it was approved.  When using some of the following databases, you may find some references to European patents (EP#) - sometimes US companies, like Medtronics register for foreign patents hoping that it will take less time to successfully be awarded the patent.  You will want to review the claims  as that is what you are expanding upon to reshape or re-engineer the device to make it more responsive. Opening up the illustrations or drawings in some patent databases may require special TIFF software - record the patent # and search in another database or follow instructions on how to download special TIFF software. 

Patents are known to protect ideas and intellectual property.  There are two kinds of patents:  those that have been approved and those that have applications still pending   The latter is protected once filed but remember that it can take several years to get approval.   In the US, in late September 2022 the USPTO released a new Patent Search database and it is recommended that you review the following guides and tutorials before you search it.