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Empirical study on the impact of knowledge in international patent classification on design inspiration of undergraduate students

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of the factors that stimulate inspiration in the design process. An empirical study is proposed in this paper. Three factors were summarized, including knowledge, knowledge relations and innovative strategies. Representations of these three factors that were extracted from the international patent classification (IPC) were analyzed. An experimental scheme was designed, where 40 undergraduate students were selected as subjects and divided into five groups. One group was used as the control group with no materials provided, and the other four groups were used as the experimental subjects. The three factors and their combinations were provided to each of the four experimental groups. Subjects in each group were asked to propose preliminary designs of a coin-sorting device. The submitted designs were evaluated based on the novelty and practicality of the innovation. By comparing the groups, the impact of each factor on inspiration could be analyzed. The results show that the verb knowledge in the IPC has a significant impact on stimulating inspiration. For untrained students lacking experience, innovative strategies have a negative impact on the novelty of the inspiration. The knowledge relations can overcome the negative impact on the novelty induced by the innovative strategies.

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Acknowledgements

This research is sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51075356).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Yu Ji, Qingying Qiu, Peien Feng & Jianwei Wu

  2. Intellectual Property School, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Yu Ji

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  1. Yu Ji
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  2. Qingying Qiu
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  3. Peien Feng
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  4. Jianwei Wu
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Correspondence to Yu Ji.

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Ji, Y., Qiu, Q., Feng, P. et al. Empirical study on the impact of knowledge in international patent classification on design inspiration of undergraduate students. Int J Technol Des Educ 29, 803–820 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9457-0

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