The Collegiate Inventors Competition Judging Process

Find out how we determine the Winners.

Judging Is Completed In Two Rounds

Round One: Initial Judging

Each Collegiate Inventors Competition® (CIC) entry is reviewed by our initial judging panel, which includes scientists, researchers and experts in a variety of fields.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame® relies on the Judges’ collective scores and rankings, along with data collected by independent researchers, to determine our CIC Finalists.

All Finalists are notified by telephone and email approximately two months before our final judging round. Other entrants will be notified by email later that month.

Finalists also will be featured on the Collegiate Inventors Competition website.

Round Two: Final Judging

In October, CIC Finalists gather at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Here, they meet with our final judging panel to formally present the work they’ve done to develop their extraordinary inventions.

Our final judging panel consists of NIHF Inductees and special guest Judges, which have included intellectual property experts from the USPTO, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Abbott Laboratories, among others.

Following the Finalists’ presentations, our Judges deliberate to select Winners in both the Graduate and Undergraduate categories.

Round One: Initial Judging
Round Two: Final Judging

Meet Our 2024 Final Judges

National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees

JD Albert

Electronic Ink
2016 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Sylvia Blankenship

1-MCP for Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Freshness
2022 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Robert Bryant

LaRC-SI (Langley Research Center-Soluble Imide)
2023 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Eric R. Fossum

CMOS Active Pixel Image Sensor Camera-on-a-Chip
2011 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Marcian "Ted" Hoff

Microprocessor
1996 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Alois Langer

Implantable Heart Defibrillator
2002 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Victor B. Lawrence

Signal Processing in Telecommunications
2016 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Frances Ligler

Portable Optical Biosensors
2017 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Mick Mountz

Mobile Robotic Material Handling for Order Fulfillment
2022 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

Steve Sasson

Digital Camera
2011 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee

United States Patent and Trademark Office

Jacqueline Cheng

Supervisory Patent Examiner, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Scarlett Goon

Supervisory Patent Examiner, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Kang Hu

Supervisory Patent Examiner, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Anne M. Kozak

Senior Advisor to the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office