| Lesson Plans and Student Projects Intellectual Property: How Allowing People to Own Ideas Helps Fuel Innovation A four-unit lesson plan for middle- and high-school students This lesson plan explores how letting people own ideas through the patent process promotes innovation, leading to improved productivity, lower production costs, and rising living standards. It demonstrates one role that government plays — in this case, through its repsonsibility for the patent process — in promoting economic growth. In 2003, Tim Dwyer, a history teacher at Dedham High School, participated in a two-week, curriculum-related "externship" for middle- and high-school teachers offered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in partnership with the City of Boston's School to Career initiative. During this brief program, he developed this lesson plan. Of special interest is his patent timeline, developed as a teaching tool for Lesson 3 of this unit, which helps students understand how inventions change—and in most cases improve—the way we live.
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