Design by Analogy: Achieving More Patentable Ideas from One Creative Design

Abstract

A patent is a kind of technical document to protect intellectual property for individuals or enterprises. Patentable idea generation is a crucial step for patent application and analogy is confirmed to be an effective technique to inspire creative ideas. Analogy-based design usually starts from representation of an analogy source and is followed by the retrieval of appropriate analogs, mapping of design knowledge and adaptation of target solution. To diffuse one core idea into other new contexts and achieve more patentable ideas, this paper mainly centered on the first two stages of analogy-based design and proposed a patentable ideation framework. The analogical information of the source system, including source design problems and solution, was mined comprehensively through International Patent Classification analysis and represented in the form of function, behavior and structure. Three heuristics were suggested for searching the set of candidate target systems with a similar design problem, where the source design could be transferred. To systematize the process of source representation, analogs retrieval, idea transfer, and solution generation, an ideation model was put forward. Finally, the bladeless fan was selected as a source design to illustrate the application of this work. The design output shows that the representation and heuristics are beneficial, and this systematic ideation method can help the engineer or designer enhance creativity and discover more patentable opportunities.

Product Improvement Using Knowledge Mining and Effect Analogy

“…Structure mapping theory is the research result of analogy design for relational structure problems. Its key idea is to extract the structure between various factors in the source design, match it with the structure of the target design, and use the solution method of source problems to solve the target problem [90,91]. Structural mapping occurs at multiple levels, such as surface features, attributes, and relationships.…”

Acquisition Method of User Requirements for Complex Products Based on Data Mining

“…Therefore, patent-data-driven product innovation design has attracted the attention of academia. By retrieving patents related to target functions, Jia et al used the analogy method to analyze product structure and obtain product design inspiration [17]. Bai et al identified the hot innovation fields of smart grid at home and abroad by mining patent information [18].…”

End of life of mosquito nets: searching for alternative uses through patent classification

“…The methods and sources from which the stimuli can be originated are manifold, as shown by several contributions in the literature (Zwicky, 1967;Smith, 1998;Howard et al, 2010;Dewulf, 2011;Verhaegen et al, 2011;Lin et al, 2012;Fantoni et al, 2013;Yoon et al, 2015;Geum & Park, 2016;Fiorineschi et al, 2018;Jia et al, 2018;Tauqeer & Bang, 2020;Liu et al, 2021). In particular, authors in (Verhaegen et al, 2012) introduced the socalled Systematic Method for Identifying Reuse Opportunities of Supporting Goods (SMIROSG).…”

“…Furthermore, the quality of the results will depend on the extent of said database. (Jia et al, 2018) propose instead an analogy-based ideation framework for the generation of new patentable ideas in different fields from which the source design is taken. The process starts with the representation of an analogy source, which is a design problem and solution that has already been patented.…”