Illinois State University Expands Intellectual Property Education Across Diverse Academic Fields

Intellectual property (IP) education at Illinois State University took a significant step forward in the 2025-26 academic year as a second cohort of faculty members incorporated IP concepts into their curricula across various disciplines. This initiative, supported by the Stephen and Sharon Hagge Innovation Institute, the George R. and Martha Means Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, and the Center for Integrated Professional Development (CIPD), aims to cultivate students’ critical thinking about ownership and the broader value of their ideas.

Dr. Erol Sozen, assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, integrated IP into food science projects where students developed sustainable products. His approach encouraged students to evaluate how their innovations could be protected and commercialized, including considerations around patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. “Students are no longer stopping at product development,” Sozen noted. “They’re thinking strategically about their ideas, whether that means patenting a process or keeping a formulation as a trade secret.”

Sozen highlighted the shift in student engagement, observing that learners moved beyond rote memorization to applying IP principles directly to their work. This included distinguishing between protecting a recipe’s expression versus its formulation and recognizing the importance of strong branding through trademarks.

In the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Rachel Shively incorporated IP education into teacher preparation courses focused on instructional materials and digital content. She emphasized the importance of copyright and fair use in her instructional technology course for world language educators. “It’s important for future educators to understand how they can use copyrighted materials in their classrooms and make informed decisions about sharing their own work,” Shively explained.

Shively also stressed empowering students to control how their instructional materials are shared, including the use of Creative Commons licenses. This approach acknowledges the growing trend of educators sharing or selling their materials online.

Within the School of Information Technology, Dr. Elahe Javadi integrated IP concepts into courses where students developed artificial intelligence (AI)-based applications and hardware systems. She underscored the increasing importance of originality and IP positioning in the context of AI tools. Students were tasked with articulating what made their ideas unique and considering appropriate protection strategies.

In the finance discipline, Dr. Tim Trombley introduced IP as an economic asset. His students explored how intellectual property can be funded, licensed, and scaled, analyzing how ownership impacts funding opportunities, development speed, and market reach.

Similarly, in the Department of Management, Dr. Tobias Pret assigned IP-focused projects that encouraged students to consider early-stage protection of business ideas. Pret’s students engaged in practical exercises, including using generative AI to develop follow-up patents for existing inventions. “By requiring them to employ generative AI to develop a follow-up patent for an existing one, students get engaged in a practical exercise that teaches them valuable skills they can later apply in the real world,” he said.

This interdisciplinary approach positions intellectual property as a practical skill set, particularly relevant as AI and digital tools make content creation and sharing easier while raising complex ownership questions.

Looking ahead to the 2026-27 academic year, Illinois State University has recognized additional faculty recipients of the CIPD for IP upskill. Dr. Megan Hopper from the School of Communication plans to integrate IP into media ethics coursework, focusing on content creation, distribution, and access. Dr. Pranshoo Solanki from the School of Technology intends to incorporate IP into construction courses by having students analyze patented systems and their influence on design decisions.

Through these efforts, Illinois State University continues to build a robust intellectual property awareness culture, equipping students across disciplines with the knowledge to protect, market, and leverage their innovations beyond the classroom.