Due to the transformation of traditional domain specific products to smart, connected and interdisciplinary products that are increasingly developed within value creation networks, an exchange of innovation-relevant knowledge in early engineering phases is required, covering interdependencies of several technical systems. Knowledge-based collaboration within a value creation network could enable an acceleration during the innovation development of smart products. Discipline- and stakeholder-specific knowledge, e.g. semiconductor research and production knowledge along the product lifecycle must be prepared for the usage within innovation development. This paper introduces a conceptual approach of a knowledge base to support the collaboration during innovation processes within value creation networks for smart products. The main focus is the sharing of relevant knowledge from different stakeholders within the innovation value creation network. Through knowledge networking, decentrally collected initial knowledge is centralized, made explorable and realized through a three-stage tagging architecture similar to an ontology. The collaboration of different stakeholders is enabled through mutual knowledge interests and automated suggestions independent from their respective IT ecosystems. The presented approach is instantiated and validated by considering the function to charge mobile phones wirelessly while car driving. Prerequisites for the presented approach are discussed.