Not new, but new for you

A creative process for innovation often is little more than the combining of existing knowledge to create something new.

Today the patent database counts 67 million patents or solutions to 67 million well defined problems. Half of these documents are over 20 years old, which means they are free, accessible knowledge.  As for the other half, as long as their ideas are used in a different domain they are also a source of inspiration for technology transfer. For example, a type of foam used to make the perfect shape in a helmet, can be used in a perfectly shaped shoe.  In a way, the patent database is the closest thing to a global brain we have available.  At CREAX, whenever we face a problem we don’t look for a new solution but look for everybody else in the world that had the same problem. Chances are that somebody in the world already faced the same problem. 

It’s inherent in the patent classification that solutions are classified by types of problems. The Patent office will examine every invention and place it where it belongs, i.e. surrounded by similar inventions. So, if a tire manufacturer protects a new way of cutting viscoelastic material such as rubber it is in the same location that food companies patented a process for cutting viscoelastic material be it cheese. Cheese and rubber have similar properties. If bathing foam is difficult to transport from container to container because of its foaming character, 72 solutions can be found in domains like beer foam, milk foam and ink foam.  If a textile company starts to develop a matifing agent they might find solutions in the paper industry, LCD screens or cosmetics. 

However, it is not in our nature to look beyond our borders or our industry. We still have a culture of experts and the syndrome of “not invented here”.  How can you get from “not invented here” to proudly found elsewhere? How can we focus our R&D less on R and more on D and use existing knowledge to develop new products? Research is by the way re-search; often the search has already been done. Too often we duplicate work; too often we spend on research grants only to discover that the work has already been done. 

Today the concept of sustainability we apply to energy and materials, but perhaps we should apply it to knowledge too. Perhaps we can make a difference by recycling knowledge more effectively. 

Innovation by knowledge transfer is a logical process that can largely be automated. Any product or process can be defined by a set of properties (what it is) and functions (what it does). These property-function relations are independent of product, meaning every transparent product can be looked through, every flexible product can be folded, and every hollow product can be lighter.  By this form of abstraction into product DNA one can link to other industries. 

A windscreen wiper is close to a squeegee.  However, they never cross-fertilised, and yet a windscreen wiper is far more developed. The surface of a golf ball uses technology of the Challenger to reduce air friction, but this technology can also be applied to cars or high speed trains where it gives 30% less friction or consumption.

Patents are a means to distil these property function relations. Every claim is after all a description of a change in property for a gain in function.  Abstracting your problem to the generic, you immediately filter the relevant patents out of the 67 million, which are generally a few thousand patents from different domains.

 In this way we can look at the patent database as the most powerful colleague of every engineer in Europe, since it will add 67 million solutions to his or her personal experience.  Nobody is as smart as everybody together.

However, today in most large companies we work with in Europe, patents remain the exclusive business of the patent department and not the R&D strategy mangers.  SME’s don’t even know that patents can be found online. 

We need easier access to cross-domain knowledge. In contrast to China we have insufficient training on how to work with a patent database, let alone writing patents. We must focus more on process innovation and the marketing of innovation, as opposed to purely product innovation. We should promote the reuse of existing knowledge as much as the invention of the new.

Finally, I can show you a map of the biggest patent takers in Belgium, and you can see the relations they have.  Patents can show who is working on the same problem across different industries. Patents can show who should be working together in Europe. Patent data exploitation forms the easiest entry to open innovation in Europe.