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PROBLEMS: EASY TO SAY BUT DIFFICULT TO WRITE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Vito Giordano ,
Marco Consoloni ,
Filippo Chiarello  and
Gualtiero Fantoni
Vito Giordano*
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Department of Energy, Systems, Land and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy; B4DS - Business Engineering for Data Science lab, University of Pisa, Italy
Marco Consoloni
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Department of Energy, Systems, Land and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy; B4DS - Business Engineering for Data Science lab, University of Pisa, Italy
Filippo Chiarello
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Department of Energy, Systems, Land and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy; B4DS - Business Engineering for Data Science lab, University of Pisa, Italy
Gualtiero Fantoni
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy; B4DS - Business Engineering for Data Science lab, University of Pisa, Italy
*
Giordano, Vito, University of Pisa, Italy, vito.giordano@phd.unipi.it

Abstract

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Patents are an invaluable source of data that can be beneficial for Engineering Design (ED). Patenting is one of the main means for disclosing the inventive process. For this reason, the description of the problem solved should also be included in any patents.

The ED literature lacks a proper definition of a problem, resulting in a fragmented scenario. Prior studies have employed Text Mining (TM) to extract problems from patents. We argue that TM can assist ED researchers in understanding how problems are articulated in text. Based on the literature, we propose two hypotheses: (1) problem-related text exhibits a negative sentiment polarity compared to other sections of patents; (2) problem-related keywords identified in the literature are predominantly used to describe problems rather than other aspects.

We analyse Japanese patents to validate our hypotheses, since they explicit Problem and Solution in the abstract. Finally, we compare our results with a set of problem-related sentences extracted from USPTO patents.

Our study reveals a higher positive sentiment in problem-related sentences compared to solution-related ones and highlights the inadequacy of using problem-related keywords alone to differentiate between the two.

Keywords

Patent AnalysisText miningKnowledge managementSemantic data processingConceptual design
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 3: ICED23 , July 2023 , pp. 2945 - 2954
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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