IPR story 3

Story 3

2 students, Raman and Anil start their research programs. Raman follows ongoing research and Anil spends some time searching patent databases, to identify what is hot! (hot topics have lot of patents being filed). Both have same facilities, same funds, good guides and both complete in time.
Raman's work is of academic type, with scope for further research. He gets several interview calls from industry, but has to wait for selection.
Anil has a lot of offers from the industry and employers waiting to hire him.
Reason?
Anil chose a practically applied problem, based on search of patent databases (remember patents are filed for 'commercially applicable research'). For the same time and effort, he was able to create value for industry and for himself too! Raman missed the opportunity and did not focus on 'commercially relevant research'. Just a simple choice of project made a lot of difference in the carreer prospects.
Moral of the story:
Refer to patents, to identify commercially relevant research (which can practically benefit society and result in applicaiton of your efforts). www.uspto.gov is a good site to make a beginning. search under 'patents' give your subject related keywords.