TRIZ, Patents, Intellectual Property Management, SMEs

1. Proceedings of ERIMA07’
15-16th March 2007, Biarritz, FRANCE
ERIMA07’ Proceedings
Intellectual Property Management: a TRIZ-based approach to
manage innovation within SMEs
D. Regazzoni1
, C. Rizzi*1
and R. Nani2
1
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Bergamo, Dalmine (BG), Italy
2
Scinte Consultant, Ranica (BG), Italy
* Corresponding author: caterina.rizzi@unibg.it, +39.035.2052075
Abstract: In this paper, we present a methodology and a working paradigm, based on TRIZ theory,
specifically conceived for SMEs that are not able to face the problem of Intellectual Property Management
(IPM) in an autonomous way. As a first step, we introduce the competences and possible company
structure to manage and protect Intellectual Property by means of patents and trademarks; then we
describe the methodologies and the tools, which can be used for IPM, such as those derived from TRIZ.
Finally, we describe a case study which refers to a typical example of know-how transfer from a
technological leading sector to the large production of consumable products showing the use of
considered TRIZ tools.
Keywords: TRIZ, Patents, Intellectual Property Management, SMEs
I. Introduction
The capability to manage Intellectual Property is becoming essential for SMEs that actively try
to face competition of emerging countries and Far East (China, India, etc.). Nevertheless, some
aspects are often neglected, such as the importance of patents, not only as a legal protection
from unauthorised copying of inventions, but also as a tool for a systematic innovation of both
product and process; in fact, patents can represent the starting point for systematic innovation.
In this paper, we first introduce three possible organisation paradigms for SMEs that aim at
managing internally Intellectual Property and playing an active role. Then we present a
methodology and its related tools, based on TRIZ theory that can be applied by SMEs to face
the problem of Intellectual Property in an autonomous way. The methodology, based on
systematic innovation tools, regards the following key aspects: valorisation and formalisation of
the company’s technical knowledge, monitoring and acceleration of the innovation process,
management and defence of the intellectual property by patents and trademarks and increase
of SMEs autonomy in the management of the IP. The last part of the paper shows a real
application of TRIZ tools to perform a technology transfer study regarding the wireless
communication technology in the aircraft industry.
II. Organisational paradigms for IPM within SMEs
Traditionally, SMEs are reluctant to establish an internal department for Intellectual Property
Management (IPM). However, creating a technical-legal Department is not so arduous as far as
it concerns either operativity or investments in terms of infrastructures and human resources. In
fact, the synergies derived from such a department in the innovation area permit to create the
conditions for self maintenance. To describe possible organisational paradigms we first
introduce the concept of ‘Standard Structure’ for a SME. A Standard Structure is characterised
by a R&D department and a Patent Attorneys whose role is to act as a legal representative for
the company with regard to IP. Generally speaking, such a structure is not used to manage
those IP issues related to the company’s know-how and industrial secret, i.e., its technological
wealth which is not protected by patents. The R&D department develops products mainly using
information/data available from the other departments of the company (marketing, procurement,
sales, etc.); while the Patent Attorney writes the new applications on the basis of information
provided by the R&D department and follows the procedure for the grant of the patent. S/he is
likely not aware of the company’s know-how and industrial secret; therefore s/he cannot lead
the company toward a consolidation of its IP (Fig. 1).

2. A TRIZ-based approach to manage innovation within SMEs
With reference to this standard configuration, we envisage three organisation structures
characterised by different levels of IP-management: basic innovation management (minimal
solution), intermediate management of IPR (intermediate solution), and active management of
IPR (optimal solution).
Figure 1. Standard structure
The first level implies that the R&D department plays a more active role: it manages the product
development and performs the state of the art analysis using one or more patents search
engine (e.g., Espacenet and Uspto) getting free from the traditional information channels
internal to the company (Fig. 2). The interaction with Patent Attorney becomes more active:
patents analysis completes technical information necessary to write new applications; the R&D
department gives an important effort to establish a communication channel between Patent
Attorney and Examination Board. Patent Attorney is still in charge for writing patents
applications.
Figure 2. Basic Innovation Management
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3. D. Regazzoni, C. Rizzi,and R. Nani
The second solution envisages the establishment of an IP department that manages and
transfers the company knowledge, creating communication channels between the R&D
department and Patent Attorney. At this level, the IP management mainly consists in analysing
and monitoring the state of the art. The patent Attorney remains and the IP department in case
of technical analysis and patent litigations technically supports him/her.
Figure 3. Intermediate management of IPR
This last structure implies an IPR department working in coordination with the R&D and the
Patent Attorney is not needed anymore because his/her role and technical-legal tasks are
completely assumed by the IP department (see figure 4). The IP department directly manages
the legal aspects of Patent, included grant procedures, hearings and litigations according to
national and/or international Patent Conventions. The IP rights management mainly concerns:
monitoring of the state of the art, promoting of studies and consultancy services in the field of
IP; evaluation of patent portfolio in relation to the company’s know-how and industrial secret.
The use of specific methodologies (e.g. TRIZ and GTI) and tools for systematic innovation (e.g.,
CAI tools) and semantic-based search tools allows the synergy between the IP and the R&D
department, both involved in product innovation processes. These last ones permit to
consolidate and enhance product innovation processes and to stress the developments of new
inventions with respect to the state of the art. Thus, the IP department acquires an added
value/benefit not available within the other company departments.
Figure 4. Structure with active management of IPR
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4. A TRIZ-based approach to manage innovation within SMEs
III. TRIZ methodology and Patents Management
In the following, we will introduce some tools that can be adopted both by IP and R&D
departments of SMEs to enhance IPM and innovation. As previously mentioned, the suggested
methodology bases on tools which are an integrating part of the TRIZ theory (Altshuller, 1984)
(Ikovenko, 2000) (The TRIZ Journal, www.trizjournal.com). TRIZ was developed by Genrich
Altshuller (1926-1998) and his research staff since 1946. Their goal was to capture the creative
process in scientific and technological area, codify it and make it repeatable and applicable
(Savransky, 2000). Altshuller started his work screening patents (over 1,500,000 patents have
now been analysed), looking for inventive problems and how they were solved. Functional
analysis, Technical Contradictions and Inventive Principles can be used, among the several
TRIZ tools, in order to manage technical knowledge and patents.
1. Functional analysis and knowledge valorisation
The Functional Analysis provided by TRIZ, combines the subject-action-object (SAO) logics with
the value engineering thinking (Miles, 1972). It formalises the technical knowledge through two
types of models based on functional decomposition of a system: the Function Tree Diagram and
the Functional Model (FM). In particular, FM takes advantage of a simple graphic language,
which permits to identify every component of a system/product, its role and functions (both
useful and harmful). In the field of patents management, functional modelling is particularly
useful. First, it allows to model a technical system in a synthetic and objective way, whether one
has to describe a new invention in a patent (figure 5a) or has to analyze a patent to understand
how the invention works (figure 5b).
(a)
(b)
Figure 5. Functional analysis and Patents
For both flows represented in Figure 5 functional models represent, in different contexts, an
impartial coding of the knowledge. Said coding is usable for the analysis of patents extensions,
patent-breakings and representations of technical knowledge. The functional description of a
technological apparatus or of a company department permits to build a balanced linguistic
structure, preserving the action-reaction principle between subject and object but eliminating all
descriptive redundancies used in everyday. If a patent is being analysed and modelled, a good
work highlight strengths and weakness of the device described, creating a robust base for
eventual patent breaking or circumvention. Bad models may bring to wrong evaluations of what
is claimed in the patent, with potential severe and expensive legal consequences. Therefore,
functional analysis constitutes a valid tool to share and spread out the technical knowledge
inside and outside the company.
For instance, the description of a user handbook or of a patent, written according to the
functional analysis has proved to allow a univocal translation into different languages. This can
be of a particular importance in litigations as misunderstandings or wrong translations could be
avoided.
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5. D. Regazzoni, C. Rizzi,and R. Nani
2. Contradictions-Inventive Principles and Innovation Monitoring
The “Contradiction” concept is one of the most important in TRIZ underlying philosophy.
According to TRIZ terminology a contradiction occurs when improving one parameter or one
feature of a technical system, the same or another feature or parameter are negatively affected.
TRIZ states that when a solution overcomes contradictions this is likely to be the most effective
inventive solution. Altshuller and his collaborators took out from a large amount of patents 40
inventive strategies (named Inventive Principles) to help an engineer finding highly inventive
(potentially patentable) solution to a problem. From this basis, he developed a matrix (named
Contradiction matrix or Altshuller matrix) whose cells contain the principles, which should be
considered for any specific situation.
Within the framework of IP management, Contradictions can be used to monitor innovation by
classifying patents on the basis of the contradictions they face and/or the solutions they provide,
thus concentrating the inventive efforts on specific objectives. On the other hand, identifying the
technical contradictions still subsisting in a product (either proprietary or owned by a competitor)
improves the understanding of where and how to innovate the product. Moreover the early
identification of contradictions speeds up the innovation process. Functional analysis provides a
valid support for this activity, i.e., contradictions identification.
Traditionally, Inventive Principles are used as a tool for problem solving. However, by analysing
patents one can trace the inventive principles used to find a solution and outline a trend of
evolution of the new ideas. Similarly to contradictions, Inventive Principles can be used for
different purposes: to classify patents by the most relevant inventive principles instead of
classifying them by branch, such as automotive, electronics, aeronautics, etc., or to monitor the
innovative process inside a company or of a specific industrial sector by recognizing/identifying
the most used principles (Nani 2005, Nani 2006) (see figure 6).
Figure 6. Inventive Principles and Patents
Thus, the classification of patents according to contradictions and/or inventive principles allows
a company to better define its Intellectual property strategy, considering also patent analysis
and patent breaking whether favourable or unfavourable to the company. Figure 7 shows the
role in which TRIZ tools can be adopted.
Figure 7. Application of TRIZ tools to perform IPR functions
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6. A TRIZ-based approach to manage innovation within SMEs
ERIMA07’ Proceedings
IV. Application
The case study described in this paragraph refers to a typical example of know-how transfer
from a technological leading sector to the large production of consumable products. Such
technology transfer process must take into account severe constraints such as logistic,
economic, maintenance, ease of use and reliability issues. By monitoring the patents referring to
the chosen technology it is possible to depict the state of the art of the leading sector and to
highlight the connections with the target sector.
The adopted method is based on the evaluation of such intellectual property feature as:
The technical value of patents and patent applications of the leading technology;
The relationships of the leading technology along with the large scale wide range products,
whose existence may be not clear to the technology transfer office people;
The economic potential value of the product, assessed to optimize cost referring to R&D,
Production and Management;
The present case study can be divided in the following steps:
1. Identification of the main patent class of the considered technology;
2. Identification of a set of potential target patent classes;
3. Classification and description of the referring technology on the base of TRIZ tools
previously introduced.
Step 1 - Identification of the main patent class
The case study is about flight control systems used to manage flight parameters such as aircraft
position, direction and speed. In particular the patent search has been focused on wireless
technologies for radio-transmission of data developed in the aerospace and aeronautic industry.
The identification of the parameters characterizing the leading technology has been carried out
by analyzing technical data sheets provided by the main actors of the airplane industry and by
companies working specifically on electronics and flight control systems. The resulting
parameters have been crossed with the wireless technology feature, to perform a patent search.
The result obtained is a list of roughly 500 patents out of US, European and International
patents, describing the state of the art of the referring technology. The most recurrent class, to
which the patents belong to, according to International Patent Classification (IPC), is:
(IPC) G01S – Radio Direction Findings; Radio Navigation, Determining Distance or velocity by
use of radio waves radio supported navigation
Step 2 – Identification of a set of potential target patent classes
After defining the main IPC class characterizing the state of the art of the wireless technology in
aerospace and aeronautic, the search efforts are put to determine potential target classes that
are not directly or clearly connected to the main one. Those classes may be far from the G01S
class and probably are not known by technicians expert in wireless communications. At first the
search has involved only the wireless technology, i.e. the remote measurement and
transmission of physical data, without any sort of constraint. The result obtain querying the
patent database is that about 48.000 documents of the last decade meet the search criterion.
The most recurrent IPC classes are shown in Table 1.

7. D. Regazzoni, C. Rizzi,and R. Nani
Table 1 – Most relevant IPC classes related to the wireless technology patent search
Step 3 - Classification and description of the referring technology on the base of TRIZ tools
The technology transfer from aerospace to consumable electronic devices must take into
account specific constraints of the target industrial field. Ease of use and maintenance,
transmission reliability and cost are the main general parameters to be taken into account to
obtain successful technology transfers.
The classification of potential target fields represent a concrete decisional support while defining
the strategy to adopt. At the same time, defining the most important parameters of the target
field and ranking them in terms of IPC classes allows the technicians to start studying the
features of the target field(s). This can be done by exploiting tools provided by TRIZ
methodology.
Some of the most important patents taken out from the first list of 48.000 patents by means of
classifying them according to TRIZ Inventive Principles are shown in Table 2.
Inventive Principle N. 1 - Segmentation Portable instruments
US20050228549A1 Method and apparatus for isolating aircraft equipment
US20040255572A1 Aircraft engine in which there is a small clearance
separating the fan cowls and the thrust inverter cowls
US6328265 Slot forming segments and slot changing spoilers
US6069654 System and method for far-field determination of store
position and attitude for separation and ballistics
EP0637541B1 Decomposable wing and manufacturing system of a
connecting element for thin walled shaped piece, in
particular for the segments of such decomposable wing
EP0637541A1 Decomposable wing and manufacturing system of a
connecting element for thin walled shaped piece, in
particular for the segments of such decomposable wing
US4147056 Multi-segment head-up display for aircraft
..... .....
Inventive Principle n. 4 - Asimmetry Ability to measure and model
anisotropic items
US6929222 Non-jamming, fail safe flight control system with non-
symmetric load alleviation capability
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8. A TRIZ-based approach to manage innovation within SMEs
ERIMA07’ Proceedings
US6796532 Surface plasma discharge for controlling forebody vortex
asymmetry
US6314361 Optimization engine for flight assignment, scheduling and
routing of aircraft in response to irregular operations
US6255964 Universal aircraft panel with a dynamically symmetrical
series of displays for the directional and rate flight
instruments
US5060889 Apparatus and methods for maintaining aircraft track angle
during an asymmetric flight condition
US4521060 Hydraulic asymmetry detector
..... .....
Inventive Principle n.14- Curvature Capability of discriminating
single/multiple direction(s) waves by means of a single instrument
US7004428 Lift and twist control using trailing edge control surfaces on
supersonic laminar flow wings
US20050242243A1 Process and device for the optimization of the deflection of
the spoiler flaps of an aircraft in flight
US6736353 Grooved profile for diverting liquid
US20030009268A1 Wind turbulence prediction system
US6626024 Redundant altimeter system with self-generating dynamic
correction curve
US6600991 Neighbouring optimal aircraft guidance in a general wind
environment
US6571155 Assembly, computer program product and method for
displaying navigation performance based flight path
deviation information
US20010025900A1 System and method for wind-powered flight
US6161801 Method of reducing wind gust loads acting on an aircraft
US6044311 Method for protecting an aircraft against vertical gusts of
wind and pitch-attitude control device employing this
method
..... .....
Table 2 – Example of patent classification according to Inventive Principles.
V. Conclusions
In this paper we have introduced possible organisation structures for SMEs that intend to face
the problem of Intellectual Properties in an autonomous way. To this end, we present some
tools typical of TRIZ methodology that can help to deal with some specific issues of IPM. We
have mainly stressed the opportunity they offer to upgrade the quality of IPM by means of
innovative methods and qualified personnel with scientific-technical background. Both patents
monitoring and functional analysis permit to build up a precious synergy and to accelerate
product innovation inside the company. Thus, TRIZ methodology can represent a valid tool to
interlace IPM and new product demand with a systematic and rational approach.
VI. References
Atshuller G.S. (1984) Creativity As an Exact Science. CRC, ISBN-10: 0677212305 ISBN-13: 978-
0677212302.
Ikovenko S. (2000) Knowledge-based Innovation – a Technology of the Future. In:From Knowledge
Intensive CAD to Knowledge Intensive Engineering, Eds U. Cugini & M. Wozny, Kluwer Academic
Publishers, pp. 3-10.
Miles L.D. (1972) Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering. McGraw-Hill, ISBN-13: 978-
0070419261.
Nani R., (2005) Boolean Combination and TRIZ criteria. A practical application of a patent-commercial-
Data Base. Proceedings of the Triz Future Conference 2005, Graz, Austria, November 16-18, 2005.
Nani R., Regazzoni D. (2006) Practice-base methodology for effectively modelling and documenting
search, protection and innovation. Proceedings of the Triz Future Conference 2006, Kortrijk, Belgium,
October 9-11, 2006.
Savransky S.D. (2000) Engineering of Creativity. Introduction to TRIZ Methodology of Inventive Problem
Solving, CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-2255-3.