Automation of the Inventive Process

A successful patent application in the United States (i.e. one that matures into a US patent) must undergo several tests to establish it's patentability. These tests can be basically broken down into four categories: usefulness, enablement, novelty and nonobviousness. Recently there have been several proposals to automate the tests performed during the patent examination process.
   US Patent No. 5,721,910 entitled "Relational Database System Containing a Multidimensional Hierarchical Model of Interrelated Subject Categories with Recognition Capabilities", published February 24,1998 and assigned to Exxon Research and Engineering, discloses an automated method of classifying technological publications and abstracts into various business, scientific or technical fields. Classification is very important to the establishment of what constitutes a patentable invention for it defines the scope of the technological art that the invention can be applied. Employing the automated classification system such as disclosed by Patent No. 5,721,910 to a list of technical documents and references may be the first step in establishing a basis for determining whether a patent application claim is novel and may also by applied to establishing non-obviousness.
   US Patent No. 5,774,833 entitled "Method for Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Patent Text and Drawings", published June 30, 1998 and assigned to Motorola, discloses how to analyze a patent application in accordance with the common format utilized by the US patent office.
   US Patent No. 6,311,176 entitled "Method and Data Structure for the Computer-Aided Management of Developments", published on October 30, 2001 and assigned to IPCentury AG, discloses how to organize patent data in a classification system with low redundancy to minimize the official examination work which establishes the validity of patent applications.
   While these references are directed mainly toward the examination of the patentability of patent applications it is clear that such techniques might easily be applied to the establishments of novel, non-obvious inventions. Typically most novel, non-obvious inventions come about by a combination of several different concepts from differing fields of endeavor wherein there is a recognition of an analogous problem being solved in one field of endeavor which may be applied, with appropriate modification, to a second field of endeavor. By using the techniques disclosed by the above references in creating a first classification system, which classifies publications by the problems being solved, and a second classification system, which classifies publications by technological fields of endeavor, a new invention may by developed by performing an appropriate cross-reference of the two classifications.
   For example an inventor who in the field of endeavor of fluid or gas dispensing may find it advantageous for some reason to adhere a glass nozzle plate to a ceramic substrate, although there may be no teachings in the inventors field of endeavor of a proper manner of connecting the ceramic substrate and glass nozzle plate given the specific parameters and constraints desired by the inventor. However, there may be a teaching of a bonding method between ceramic and silicon which solves the inventors problem exactly but this teaching is in such a far removed field of endeavor and in such a different context that it is imperceptable to the inventor or anyone else skilled in the art. However a solution might easily be found by properly querying, based on the inventor's desired specifications, a classified database structured in terms of problems being solved using methods such as in US Patents 5,721,910 and 6,311,126. This, of course, is a very simple example of the potential of an automated invention strategy and relies a great deal on the proper querying performed by the inventor. In addition any new invention would have to be weighed in terms of it's practicality and potential earning versus cost of production and any automated type of invention algorithm which produces new inventions from a large survey of prior inventions would have to be verified as reliable by human based analysis at least in some part. Fundamental breakthroughs also would not be produced by any conceived automated invention. However the vast majority of patents comprise improvements over established technology rather than landmark breakthroughs. As further developments in searching algorithms and classification database formation continue, better and more reliable invention algorithms may be produced which factor in variables depending on projected earning versus cost of production for the invention and various other desired variables that could minimize the degree of querying of the inventor.
   Problems which may arise in the development of automated invention include a potential legal problem in establishing that the invention is "made by man" which is a requirement covered by Title 35 Section 101 of the United States Code that covers what constitutes patentable subject matter. However the statute does not specify what percentage of contribution to the invention must be made by man and as long as part of the invention is determined by human intervention it would seem that this part of the statute is met.