New: a course from IPGuru
A taught course in structured brainstorming and IP development: eighteen masterclasses and six labs that take one idea, from any starting point, to a described invention with a stated advance and a decision on where it goes. Take it online or in person, or licence it and teach it yourself.
The IPGuru platform runs the method for you. The course teaches you the method, so you can judge the work and direct it.
Three ways to take it
The same course, the same labs on your own idea, and the same IPGuru account, in whichever form fits.
Live classes over video, one part a week with its lab, or the recorded masterclasses at your own pace. The labs run in your IPGuru account, so the work is the same wherever you are.
A workshop day, a run of evenings, or a term-length seminar, taught in a room with the seminar questions discussed live and the reveal at the end of each part.
Teachers, universities, incubators and event hosts run it under their own name: the slides, the lab sheets in both forms, the seminar questions, the readings, and IPGuru accounts for every participant. Run a class, a workshop series, or an idea hackathon.
Ask about joining a class, an in-person date, or licensing the course materials.
Who it is for
Each one arrives with something real and the same question: what is this worth, and what should I do with it?
You have an idea and the question of whether to build a company on it. You leave with the described invention, the evidence for and against it, and a destination chosen before the savings go in.
You have skills and a project, and no job yet that asks for them. You leave with a finished invention pack on an idea of your own: a portfolio piece that shows judgment, method and evidence.
You have a product or a process that needs its next version. You leave with that version described against the current one, the improvements nobody outside can see, and a decision on what to keep quiet and what to file.
You have graduates and alumni who could be entrepreneurial. You get a term-length seminar with seminar questions, labs on each student's own idea, a graded invention pack, and a licence to teach it under your name.
No patent or legal background is assumed. Protection is taught once, as a core concept, and it is one destination among four.
What you learn
Every inventor asks these. The course answers them in order, with evidence, on the sheet, in words a professional, a funder or a maker can act on.
Classes 1 to 3
What is it, exactly, and for whom? Is it described well enough that a stranger could repeat it back?
Classes 4 to 9
What does it rest on? What would a specialist, a customer or a sceptic say first? Is it ready to become a project?
Classes 10 to 14
What already exists, by name? Which claims are cited, which are tested, and which are still hopes? What exactly is the advance?
Classes 15 to 18
Who owns it? Where is it strong and where is it exposed? Patent it, keep it secret, publish it, or build on it, and what does each cost? Sessions 2 to 5 take each door in full.
How it is taught
Classes 1 to 8 are the brainstorm: describe the idea well enough to explain how it works and why anyone would want it. Class 9 is the gate. Classes 10 to 18 are the project, where every claim is cited or tested.
Forty-five minutes on what an invention is, the frames and where they stop, what one person can now do, and where an invention can go.
One technique per class, under its industry name, with the fact behind it, the strongest objection answered, and what the technique is bad at.
One lab closes each part, and every lab runs on the idea you brought. The sheet's fields are the boxes of the invention pack, so you fill the shape the course shows finished.
The methods and the frames in full: interrogating an idea, running a project through gates, the structured restart, and the frame families from TRIZ to jobs to be done.
Patents and the protect decision, trade secrets, open source, and the founder path. Each is half a day and each opens from your invention pack.
Every claim is stated, cited or tested, and the course moves each one to the right. A recorded experiment counts the same as a paper you cited.
Two ways in. Start with a brainstorm, or bring a documented start, a spec, a prototype, a current product or a patent, and enter at the gate. Read the full syllabus.
What you walk out with
The pack fills as the course runs. Each class fills named boxes, and the gate reads the sheet as a whole. A buildable description, three statements of what is new, the evidence behind both, and the destination you chose with the fact that decided it.
The idea may fail. The pack does not: a well-described idea that turns out not to be new is still a finished piece of work, and you find out before the money.
The four doors
A door is chosen on a fact, late, once the description, the evidence and the ownership answer are in hand. Each of Sessions 2 to 5 teaches one of them in full.
Patents and the protect decision: the questions a patent system asks, answered with evidence, and the binder you bring to a professional.
Trade secrets: detectability as the deciding question, reasonable measures, and the know-how half that is usually the strongest part of a technical moat.
Open source and defensive publication: licence families, community, and how open and patents work together.
Founders, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing: the moat stack, launch as public disclosure, and money that arrives against milestones.
What is included
Every lab in Parts 1 to 3 runs on your own idea, as many times as you need.
The gate, the project parts and the destination you choose all run on the real thing. A class may include a Bronze, Silver or Gold project grade, or offer one after the class. Your instructor says which.
Every lab sheet also works with nothing but the sheet and whatever assistant you already use. The course stands on its own, and the platform makes it faster and keeps the record.
Grades and what each one enables are described on the platform's own pages.
Formats
| Format | What it covers | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop day, in person | Session 0, classes 1 to 3, Lab 1, and the reveal: your idea on the way in beside your committed concept on the way out | One day |
| Weekly class, online or in person | One part a week with its lab, the seminar questions discussed live, the gate in week three, the invention pack in week six. An evening a week suits people with a day job | Six weeks, about four hours a week |
| Self-paced, online | The eighteen recorded masterclasses and the optional lectures, and the labs on your own idea in your IPGuru account, with a lab sheet for every part | Session 0 about 45 minutes; eighteen classes of about 25 minutes; six labs of 60 to 90 minutes. Outside work is optional and adds its own time |
| University seminar | The masterclasses as seminars, the readings, the seminar questions for discussion, and an invention pack each student fills in, delivered under the university's name | One term |
| Idea hackathon | Session 0 to open, then teams work an idea through Labs 1 to 3 in the platform and pitch a committed concept at the close; the gate decides which ideas go on to a project. Run by a host under licence | One or two days |
| Destination sessions | Any of Sessions 2 to 5: patents and the protect decision, trade secrets, open source, or the founder path. Each opens from the invention pack | Half a day each |
Universities, incubators, independent instructors and event hosts can licence the course and deliver it under their own name, with the slides, the lab sheets in both forms, the seminar questions, the readings, and IPGuru accounts for their participants. Ask about licensed delivery.
Questions
Go deeper
Session 0, the eighteen classes in six parts with their labs, the optional lectures, the destination sessions, and how a class runs.
Recorded sessions as they are published, and where the course is being taught, online and in person.
The six lab sheets, the teaser deck, the invention pack sheet, and the worked example as it is published.
Planning a class, a term, a workshop or an idea hackathon? Ask about licensing the course materials.