User-Centered Design Approaches to Integrating Intellectual Property Information into Early Design Processes with a Design Patent Retrieval Application

ABSTRACT

The relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the development of creativity is always a controversial topic. However, it has seldom been explored from the user-centered design (UCD) perspective. This paper describes how the UCD approach has been employed to develop Design Patent Retrieval Application (acronym: DsPLAi), a mobile app aimed to integrate IPRs related information into early design processes to enhance designers’ IP practice and to facilitate the creative process. Interview studies were first conducted to identify end-users’ understanding of IPRs and related practices. Next, participatory design workshops with designers and IP processionals were organized to understand the interaction between the two parties and their needs, thereby deriving requirements for DsPLAi. A prototype of the app was developed and evaluated with ten industrial designers. The prototype received positive feedback in the usability evaluation. The empirical results showed that the provision of IPRs related information at an early stage could be helpful to the design process and that the designers were positive about the use of DsPLAi in their daily design routines.

Notes

1. Copyright laws also protect basic forms, but they have no requirement of novelty or merit (Brown, 1987), and therefore are not covered in this paper.

2. https://www.gov.uk/government/organizations/intellectual-property-office.

3. https://www.uspto.gov/ptrc.

4. http://worldwide.espacenet.com.

5. http://www.patent.com.cn.

6. https://www.patbase.com.

7. https://clarivate.com/products/derwent-world-patents-index.

8. http://disc.cnipa.gov.cn.

9. IP professionals in this research refer to advisors who work as an agency to provide services including patent application, trademark registration, domestic and foreign patent search, and infringement litigation, etc. They are well-equipped with IP related knowledge and normally have rich experience in patent retrieval using certain accesses. It is close to the role of IP attorney in most of the EU countries (refer to https://iprhelpdesk.eu/sites/default/files/documents/EU-IPR-Guide-IP-professionals.pdf) .

10. Detailed information of the interview study can be found in another article published by the same project (refer to Understanding Attitudes toward Intellectual Property from the Perspective of Design Professionals. Accepted for publication in Electronic Commerce Research). This paper only reports the part of product designers. The interview protocol can be found in Appendix 1.

11. http://www2.soopat.com/Home/IIndex.

12. http://search.cnipr.com/.

13. https://www.rainpat.com.

14. https://www.patentstar.cn.

15. https://www.soopat.com.

16. https://www.zhihuiya.com.

17. http://www.uspto.gov/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pinyan Tang

Pinyan Tang is a research fellow of the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. Her current research focuses on human-computer interaction, human factors in design, and user-centred design.

Xu Sun

Xu Sun is an Associate Professor and course director for Product Design and Manufacture at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. Her current research focuses on intellectual property rights in design, digital adaptive educational game, creative computer supported cooperative work, transportation design, and sustainable product design.

Effie Lai-Chong Law

Effie Lai-Chong Law is a full professor in Human-Computer Interaction, School of Informatics, University of Leicester, UK. Her main research focus is Usability and User Experience (UX) methodologies which are applicable to various domains, including technology-enhanced learning, games and gamification, health and wellbeing. Her recent work is on automatic multisensory emotion detection and its applications such as chatbots.

Qingfeng Wang

Qingfeng Wang is an assistant professor in Economics and Quantitative Methods at the Business School, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. His current research focuses on population/labor economics, corporate finance, intellectual property rights and information system.

Sue Cobb

Sue Cobb is an associate professor of Human Factors and Product Design in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. Her research interest is in design for users and application of user-centred research and design methods.

Xiaosong Zhou

Xiaosong Zhou is a lecturer of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Guizhou Normal University. His current research focus is on human-computer interaction and additive manufacturing.