22-Mec-B5 Product Design and Development · December 2014
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams, December 2014 — 07-Mec-B5 Product Design and Development. Three hours. Open book; no calculator permitted. Question 1 must be completed and is worth 40 marks; four of the six remaining questions are chosen, each worth 15 marks, for 100 marks in total. Only the first five questions as they appear in the answer book are marked, and the paper states that most answers are expected in essay form or as tables, figures and charts, with clarity and organisation carrying weight.
The paper prints 40 + 6 × 15 = 130 marks and a candidate attempts 40 + 4 × 15 = 100 of them. All seven questions are answered below, because this set is a study resource rather than an examination script. The published marking scheme on the last source page splits Question 1 as 6 / 9 / 9 / 6 / 4 / 6 and each 15-mark question into its own parts, and the answers below are proportioned to that split. The arithmetic is kept deliberately light — no calculator is allowed.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
The mechanism is a non-disclosure agreement, also called a confidentiality agreement. It is a contract, not a registration: the receiving party agrees to keep defined information confidential, to use it only for a stated purpose, and to return or destroy it afterwards. Because it is a contract it takes effect immediately, costs almost nothing, and can be signed before a patent application exists.
The reason it matters is the novelty requirement in patent law. Under the Canadian Patent Act, subject-matter disclosed to the public before the claim date is prior art and destroys novelty. A disclosure made in confidence is not a public disclosure, so the idea survives the conversation. Canada does provide a twelve-month grace period for disclosures made by the applicant or someone who obtained the knowledge from them, but relying on it is poor practice for two reasons: most jurisdictions, including the European Patent Convention states, have no equivalent grace period, so a public disclosure in Canada can permanently bar foreign protection; and Canada has been first-to-file since 1989, so delay itself is a risk.
A workable agreement has to define the confidential information specifically enough to be enforceable, state the permitted purpose, set a term, carve out the standard exceptions (information already public, already known to the recipient, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law), and say who owns anything created during the discussion. The last point is the one engineers most often omit and most often regret. The practical limits are also worth stating: an agreement binds only its signatories, it gives a remedy after the harm rather than preventing it, proving breach is difficult and expensive, and it does nothing against a third party who arrives at the same idea independently. The usual professional sequence is therefore to file at least a provisional or priority application first where the idea is patentable, and use the agreement to cover the discussions that follow.
| Instrument | What it protects | Term | How obtained |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patent | A new, useful and non-obvious invention: a product, composition, machine or process | 20 years from filing, with maintenance fees | Examined application to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office under the Patent Act |
| Industrial design registration | Visual features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament of a finished article | The later of 10 years from registration and 15 years from filing | Registration under the Industrial Design Act, within 12 months of first publication |
| Trade secret | Any commercially valuable information kept confidential: formulations, process parameters, tooling know-how, customer data | Indefinite, while secrecy holds | No registration; contracts, access control and practice |
| Trade mark | Words, designs, shapes or other signs distinguishing one trader's goods from another's | 10 years, renewable indefinitely | Registration under the Trademarks Act, or unregistered rights through use |
| Copyright | Original expression: drawings, source code, manuals, documentation | Life of the author plus 70 years in Canada | Automatic on creation; optional registration as evidence |
1. Patent. Used where the value is in how something works and where the invention can be reverse-engineered from the product once sold — a mechanism, a metallurgy, a control method. The bargain is explicit: the state grants a time-limited right to exclude in exchange for a disclosure sufficient for a skilled person to practise the invention. Advantages: the strongest right available, it stops even an independent inventor, it is a licensable and saleable asset, and it is the currency investors understand. Disadvantages: expensive and slow, typically several years and tens of thousands of dollars once foreign filings are included; the disclosure is permanent and teaches competitors how to design around; enforcement is the owner's cost and burden; and protection is national, so it must be pursued country by country.
2. Industrial design registration. Used where the value is in appearance rather than function — a distinctive housing, a recognisable handle profile, the visual identity of a consumer product. Advantages: cheap and fast compared with a patent, and it protects exactly the thing a copyist actually copies, which is the look. Disadvantages: it protects nothing functional, so a competitor who restyles is free; the term is short; and it must be applied for within twelve months of first publication in Canada, a deadline routinely missed by companies that launch first and think about protection later.
3. Trade secret. Used where the advantage is invisible in the product — heat-treatment schedules, a coating chemistry, machine parameter sets, the calibration behind a well-performing process. Advantages: no cost, no disclosure, no expiry, and immediate effect; the classic examples have outlasted several patent terms. Disadvantages: it evaporates on disclosure, whether by a departing employee, a supplier or a security failure, and it gives no right at all against someone who discovers the same thing independently or by lawful reverse engineering. In Canada it rests on contract and the common-law action for breach of confidence rather than on a dedicated statute, which makes enforcement fact-heavy.
4. Trade mark. Used to protect the brand under which the product is sold, and increasingly the shape or colour that consumers associate with a source. Advantages: renewable indefinitely, so it is the only instrument that can outlive the product generation; it is what carries reputation and customer trust; and it supports action against counterfeits at the border. Disadvantages: it protects nothing about how the product works, so a competitor may lawfully make an identical article under a different name; it must be used to be maintained; and marks that are merely descriptive of the goods are not registrable.
5. Copyright. Used for the documentation layer of an engineering product — drawings, embedded firmware source, manuals, training material, the user interface artwork. Advantages: automatic, free, immediate and long, and it is the practical instrument for software, where patenting is difficult in Canada. Disadvantages: it protects only the expression, never the underlying idea or function, so a competitor may write different code that does exactly the same thing; and ownership is a trap, because in Canada copyright in a work made by an independent contractor belongs to the contractor unless the contract assigns it in writing, which is why consulting agreements must contain an express assignment.
In practice these are layered rather than chosen. A single product will typically carry a patent on the mechanism, an industrial design registration on the housing, trade secrets around the process parameters, a registered trade mark on the name, and copyright in the firmware and manuals — with non-disclosure agreements binding every supplier and employee who touches any of it.
