Thirty years in the field of invention

 Honored inventor of NTUU "KPI", Honored inventor of Ukraine, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Igor Olegovich Mikulonok at the end of 2016, he received the title of researcher-lecturer. A little earlier - in October 2016 - he was awarded the medal "For the invention" of the World Intellectual Property Organization. IO Mikulonok is the author and co-author of more than 800 copyright certificates and patents for inventions and useful models (of which more than 300 are sole). The editorial board of "KP" appealed to him to reveal the secrets of such achievements. We give him a story. I began to do technical work at school. It all began with the fact that my father's friend Vitali Mikhalov gave us a wonderful designer with our brother, with which we made various mechanisms and models. A little later, my mother's school girlfriend Inna Postivsky brought from Moscow a wonderful children's set of tools for carpentry work. I've been with me for more than four decades since I started working with a drill, a screwdriver, a sharp knife and a saw from this set. I am convinced, to a large extent, thanks to these gifts, I learned to "think hands". Studying at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering (from 1999 - Engineering-Chemical), I from the third year I worked at the Department of Machines and Apparatus of Chemical Production with a laboratory assistant at half-time. Participated in the implementation of the scientific and research projects of the economy on the order of the Kiev Scientific and Production Association (NGO) "Bolshevik". Thanks to the elderly practitioners (studying, production, research), before the end of the KPI, he mastered several workers' specialties, in particular a locksmith, a mechanized assembler, a tamper and a miller. At the same time he got acquainted with the associate of department No. 59 of the Special Design Bureau of Polymer Machine-building (SDB polimermash) of the Bolshevik Engineering Company, later the chief designer of the project Sergey Alexandrovich Roshchupkin. Thanks to him I joined the inventions - it was under his leadership that he took part in the compilation of the first application inventions in his life.

After the protection at the level of the invention, the diploma was left on the department on the post of an engineer to perform research and design of equipment for the processing of polymers and rubber mixtures. The main customer was the Bolshevik R&D; therefore, during 1986-1991, I spent almost all working time on Bolshevik, in particular, in the department No. 59 SDB polymermash and factory shops.

Former eminent metallurgist, KPI graduate academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Ivan Pavlovich Bardin said: "The correct education of an engineer at the beginning of his activity has no less value than education in higher technical educational institutions. The engineer who left the institute must receive thermal treatment in the factory environment" . I think that such "processing" I got on "Bolshevik".

It should be said that I began to orient in the formulation and description of future inventions after the execution of about ten statements. In this, I was very helped by the employee of department № 52 SDB polymermash Yuriy Vsevolodovich Lototsky. In the KPI, the associate professor of the Department of Technical Mechanics Valentin Semenovich Velykosin, who taught us the theory of mechanisms and machines (TMM), got involved with the invention. Invented with the group Yuri Stepanovich Lukeik, the current director of PJSC "Glassware Factory".

Applications were filed mainly from SDBpolymermash or KPI (or jointly). In my native institution, I learned a lot from the experts of the patent department, especially its head Valery Gavrilovich Zhmurka.

Subsequently, in addition to "educational" inventions (which were mostly left only on paper and were not "embodied in iron"), there were real developments that were implemented primarily on the "Bolshevik".

There were also first applications, which I made completely independently, without the help of patent experts, and filed on his behalf. And the first one introduced to the industry was the development of this invention, which is protected by the copyright certificate of the USSR No. 1310533 "Threaded connection", for which I received the breastplate "Inventor of the USSR" on March 12, 1990. This mark was given to the inventor after the first introduction of his invention into the national economy.

However, the applications submitted on behalf of the organization had one significant advantage: according to the legislation, the author received an incentive reward (usually 20 or 25 rubles in the Bolshevik, 40 or 50 in the KPI). This was a significant addition to the salary of a young specialist, amounting to 115-125 rubles.

I gained valuable experience in the field of invention through correspondence with experts from the All-Union Research Institute of State Patent Examination, especially its Department No. 05 (Department of Chemistry of Polymers).

By the time the Soviet Union ceased to exist, I had 81 author's certificates of inventions. Of these, about fifty have been introduced at domestic and foreign enterprises and have shown quite high efficiency.

In 1989, in an effort to learn the wisdom of technical creativity, I entered the Kyiv Institute of Technical Creativity and Patents of the  All-Union Society of Inventors and Rationalizers ( ASIR), who graduated from 1990, having received a qualification as a methodologist of technical creativity.

For incomplete two years (from 1994 to 1995), at the invitation of a graduate of my native faculty of chemical engineering Mikhail Ilyich Dubinsky, I falsified in the patent-legal "Agency of INTEL" created by him as a leading patent scientist. Thanks to him and his partner Irina Oleksandrovna Osharova, I, in 1994, took an internship at the All-Russian Research Institute of State Patent Examination, and in 1995 I received a second degree in patent branch.

In 2001, she issued a textbook on Fundamentals of Intellectual Property, withstand several editions, distributed throughout Ukraine with a large circulation and received high marks from both students and specialists. In 2014, on its basis, published a textbook "Intellectual Property" with a stamp of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.The field of my inventive activity was not limited and not limited to my scientific specialty (processes and equipment of chemical technology). I have invented in all eight sections of the international patent classification. And once I even made up the "alphabet" of my workings out and it turned out that for every letter I have at least one invention or a useful model.

Of course, I attach students to the invention. I have more than two hundred co-authors of students and students of secondary schools who have received more than three hundred patents. All my students-diplomas have the results of their degree projects and works protected by one or several patents (2005 graduate student of the group LM-93 Olga Granovskaya on a diploma project on the theme "Line for the production of non-core roll materials for the development of rollers" received five patents). My graduate student Victor Vytvytskyy, during his studies at the university, became a co-author of more than a dozen patents and four times became a scholar of the President of Ukraine. Also, my students-diplomas repeatedly became winners and prize-winners of the International salons of inventions and new technologies.

During next years, together with the staff of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, associate professor M.G. Lysenko, head of the laboratory of cryogenic engineering O.V.Kozlenko and engineer V.V.Gavrilyuk, I work a lot with the Small Academy of Sciences. Our pupils regularly take part and become winners of various competitions at the city, state and international levels (in particular the International Competition "Stockholm Junіor Water Prіce", as well as the competition of Intel-Techno Ukraine).

In the last two years alone, together with the students of MAN, two dozen patent applications were filed on topics of their development. It should be noted that working with students is a bit harder than with students, because some of them are often not only more ambitious but too self-confident; there is no (or almost none) of their authority for them. And sometimes it is necessary to make a lot of effort to listen to the experts. But in general, it's very inquisitive and hardworking guys and girls. And I think it's just necessary to encourage them to technical creativity and provide the maximum assistance that I received at one time much later - almost when working on a graduation project.

... I often ask how exactly the ideas of inventions appear? Often, I just see how you can improve the imperfect development - and do an invention or utility model. To do this, I regularly review the latest Ukrpatent, Rospatent and European Patent Office.

At the same time, I always try to make the invention as simple as possible. And for this there is only one intuition, knowledge is needed, and knowledge in the most diverse fields, which often even go beyond the specialty. As the student constantly likes to repeat our dean E. Panov, "there is no extra knowledge". And in this I completely agree with him!