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This summer my Extreme Blue team submitted ten patent disclosures. Four of them went on to be published, but one of them was selected to be reviewed. The IBM patent process works in the following way:

1. Inventor(s) submits an idea
2. Idea is investigated by a panel of experts
3. Idea is either closed, published, or reviewed
   1. Closed – idea is either public knowledge, not novel, or not in IBM’s business
   2. Published – idea is novel, but either not in IBM’s business or not worth patenting
   3. Review – the idea is sent on to IP lawyers who further research the idea
4. After review, the idea is either closed (likely), published (likely) or filed (rare). If the idea is novel and in IBM’s best interest to patent, the idea is filed for a patent
5. A patent request is submitted and weeks, months, or years later… the idea is either patented or rejected by the patent office

One of our ideas from this summer just made it to the point where they will file the patent! This is very exciting! It would be very cool to have a patent with my name on it. They plan on submitting the patent at the end of April. Given that we have not submitted the idea yet, I cannot say what the patent is about other than it deals with the work we did on our project last summer.