Evaluating claim conflicts between patents is a crucial issue in patent applications and validity allegations. Existing patent informatics tools do not relate well to the legal requirements of identifying claim conflicts; innovation theory does not address patent evaluations; and the current legal approach has weaknesses in the repeatability between cases. Therefore, a need emerges to design a scientific method for evaluating conflicts between patent claims. This thesis presents research on the topic of identifying, evaluating, and visualising patent conflicts. ‘Conflict’ is used to have the same meaning as obviousness, which is an essential legal term under the UK Patents Act 1977. Building on existing methods, this research provides a novel method called Criteria-Based Patent Mapping, for assessing claim conflicts between patents. ‘Criteria-Based’ means that this assessment uses evaluation criteria that clarify the inventive step of the patent. The source of these criteria is the well-known Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), which is incorporated into a statistical method of 'Patent Mapping' for evaluating and visualising differences between patent claims. The application of the new method to four case studies shows that there are differences in judging standards between the legal authorities; and also shows an average value of 52% agreement in predicting potential conflicts between patent claims. Based upon these results, the original 39 TRIZ parameters can usually be refined to about 12 criteria. The scope of this method is restricted to patents in mechanical engineering due to the relevancy of TRIZ parameters. This research transforms difficult claim-to-claim evaluations into simpler claim-to-criteria comparisons that lead to more efficient and transparent patent evaluations. Such improvements will be useful for better decision-making in patent strategy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:649385 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Li, Zheng |
| Contributors | Atherton, M. A. ; Harrison, D |
| Publisher | Brunel University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/10903 |
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