The Collegiate Inventors Competition Judging Process
Find out how we determine the winners.
Judging is completed in two rounds
Round 1
Each Collegiate Inventors Competition® (CIC) entry is reviewed by our initial judging panel, made up of scientists, researchers and experts in a variety of fields.
The Judges’ collective scores and rankings, along with data collected by independent researchers, are used by the National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF) to determine the Finalists.
All Finalists are notified two months before the final judging round.
Round 2
In October, Finalist teams gather at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, where they meet with our final judging panel to formally present the work they’ve done to bring their extraordinary inventions to life.
The 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, the Judges deliberate and select the Winners in both the Graduate and Undergraduate categories.
Enter the Competition
Entries for the 2022 Collegiate Inventors Competition are closed. Check back in the spring for information on the 2023 competition.
Meet our 2022 Judges
NIHF Inductees
JD Albert
Electronic Ink
2016 NIHF Inductee
Sylvia Blankenship, Ph.D.
1-MCP for Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Freshness
2022 NIHF Inductee
Eric R. Fossum, Ph.D.
CMOS Active Pixel Image Sensor Camera-on-a-Chip
2011 NIHF Inductee
Marcian "Ted" Hoff, Ph.D.
Microprocessor
1996 NIHF Inductee
Lonnie Johnson, D.Sc
Super Soaker®
2022 NIHF Inductee
Don Keck, Ph.D.
Optical Fiber
1993 Inductee
Alois Langer, Ph.D.
Implantable Defibrillator
2002 NIHF Inductee
Victor Lawrence, Ph.D.
Signal Processing in Telecommunications
2016 NIHF Inductee
Radia Perlman, Ph.D.
Robust Network Routing and Bridging
2016 NIHF Inductee
Steve Sasson, D.Sc.
Digital Camera
2011 Inductee
Gary Sharp, Ph.D.
Polarization-Control Technology
2015 Inductee
Jim West, D.Sc.
Electret Microphone
1999 Inductee