یک سیستم مدیریت دانش ثبت اختراع مبتنی بر TRIZ جدید برای نوآوری تکنولوژی ساخت و ساز A new TRIZ-based patent knowledge management system for construction technology innovation

1. Introduction As one of the key industries for national economy, construction industry is one of the most knowledge-intensive and challenging industries due to the complicated, uncertain, and dynamic nature of construction operations. In China, it has been facing more intense challenges in recent years due to the competitive construction market, the improvement of the core technology capabilities, and the emphasis of innovation ability. An important indicator of innovation ability in China is the quantity of technological innovation outcomes such as patents, academic papers, and technology innovation products(Chen 2002). Among them, the most critical measure is the quantity of patents since it largely benchmarks an organization’s as well as a country’s innovation. A patent is a right granted by governments to inventors in order to exclude others from using, offering for sale, or selling the patented invention. The number of global patents increased from 1.52 million in 2007 to 1.80 million Moreover, continuous improvement of the construction industry depends upon the construction technology innovations (Flint 2002, Mann 2001, Skibniewski and Zavadskas 2013, Chung et al. 2009). However, there are some problems with the construction technology innovations in China such as the low innovation efficiency and the insufficient investment in research and development (R&D)(Liu et al. 2011). With the rapid development of computer and network applications, information technology has become an important tool in managing construction knowledge and technology innovations(Dossick et al. 2010). Although there are platforms to store and index the existing patents, they are more database oriented instead of knowledge oriented and cannot help innovators to make the best use of the available patent knowledge. Consequently, a new patent knowledge management system is desirable to provide innovators with up-to-date patent knowledge to improve their innovative capacity by motivating their creative thinking(Zhao and Zhao 2007). In the construction industry, different knowledge management systems have been developed for various purposes. For example, knowledge based decision support systems for construction project management (KDSS-CPM) enable professionals and organizations in the construction industry to make better use of the knowledge and experiences from the previous projects(Kanapeckiene et al. 2010). Assistant people-based map experience management (APMEM) system is a project knowledge and experience management system which assists contractors to capture experiences for reuse in future projects(Lin 2009). The Expert System to Control Construction Problems in Flexible Highway Pavements (ESCCPFHP) aims to help engineers control, analyze complicated problems and recommend effective solutions which are difficult to obtain. In addition, it can effectively archive and distribute expertise among pavement engineers(Mosa et al. 2013). However, the knowledge in the systems are extracted from past project experiences, experts and enable users to gain competitive edge in the market. Due to the protection of intellectual property, the systems are usually not public available and only used by the owners. Furthermore, these platforms only cover the knowledge of construction experience instead of technology innovations. Therefore, from the perspective of patent knowledge management, this research explores how to develop and use a new patent knowledge management platform to promote technology innovations.