Abstract
‘Someone else has patented this before’. This is the last thing you would want to hear after months of intensive engineering design work. Yet, this is not uncommon. There is a link between engineering design and intellectual property (IP). However, the boundary between them is not always well defined, especially on when and how IP infringement checks should be conducted during the engineering design process. Hence, this letter seeks to reach out to researchers in the engineering design community to come together and tackle this common design issue.