Utah’s Creative Class to Gather on April 27 for the 8th Annual UTAH GENIUS Awards

In conjunction with World IP Day, more than 50 of Utah’s most creative people and companies will be honored in the eighth annual Utah Genius Awards beginning at noon on Wednesday April 27, 2016 at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

Utah Genius Awards will go to Utah’s Top 20 Inventors, Utah’s Top 20 Companies by Number of Patents Issued, Utah’s Top 10 Trademark Registrants. A Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to New York Times best-selling author Richard Paul Evans. Cheryl Snapp Connor, owner of Snapp Conner PR agency and a Forbes.com columnist will provide the keynote address. Molly Kocialski, Director of the Rocky Mountain Regional United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Denver, will also address attendees.

Utah Genius determines award winners using data that comes directly from the USPTO. There is no voting or nomination process. The individuals and companies with the most patents or trademarks in the prior year receive Genius Awards. It’s not uncommon for the top inventor in any given year to have more than 20 patents issued in a 12-month period!

“It’s an ironclad rule of human nature,” says Utah Genius Awards founder and intellectual property attorney Rand Bateman, “that whatever you recognize you get more of.” Bateman founded the Utah Genius Awards as a way to recognize and encourage Utah’s creative class.

“There’s a quote from Arthur Conan Doyle that I think encapsulates our approach,” says Nelly Lycurgue, the CEO of Utah Genius. “He said, ‘mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.’ You can read the word ‘recognize’ two ways in that quote. Doyle certainly meant that talented people are more likely to perceive the genius in others. But it can also be read as a kind of directive for us as the beneficiaries of the innovation of others to acknowledge their achievement and merit. That’s what we do with the Utah Genius Awards.”

The Utah Genius Awards are presented by Snow, Christensen & Martineau, a full-service law firm founded in 1886 and one of Utah’s most respected firms in the areas of trials and litigation.

The Utah Genius Awards are sponsored by:

• GoEngineer, which delivers software, technology and expertise that enable companies to unlock design innovation and deliver better products faster.

• Webb Audio Visual, one of the top event production companies in America

• CoolChill, which helps business and building owners decrease electric A/C costs and increase cooling

• The Salt Lake Chamber, Utah’s largest and oldest business association

• Utah GOED, whose mandate is to provide rich business resources for the creation, growth and recruitment of companies to Utah

• BioUtah, the state’s independent life science association.

A limited number of tickets to the Utah Genius Awards are still available at https://utahgenius.com/order/.

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About Utah Genius: Utah Genius was founded in 2009 by Rand Bateman, a local patent attorney. Appreciating that much of Utah’s vibrant economy has to do with the innovative nature of Utah companies, Rand decided that he could give back to the community by honoring those who were driving Utah’s creative economy. Rather than focusing only on the companies, however, he decided to also honor the people behind the innovations – e.g. Utah’s Geniuses. The Utah Genius Awards are the only effort in Utah associated with the World Intellectual Property Day, which takes place each April 26, and is administered by the World intellectual Property Organization, a self-funding agency of the United Nations.

About UTAH GENIUS

UTAH GENIUS Awards go annually to the most inventive and innovative Utahns in three categories, based on objective data direct from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

•Top 20 inventors, by patents issued in the prior calendar year
•Top 20 most inventive companies, by patents issued in the prior calendar year
•Top 10 trademark registrants, by trademarks issued in the prior calendar year

The Genius Awards also give a Lifetime Achievement Award to someone whose career has been marked by invention, innovation, and creativity. In 2016 the Lifetime Achievement Award will go to New York Times Best-Selling Author Richard Paul Evans who, naturally, holds a number of copyrights.