Inventive Activity Research Articles

“Fundamentals of technical creativity” is mandatory discipline for all bachelors of technical higher education institutions

The history and results of many years of experience in the implementation of the disciplines "Fundamentals of Technical Creativity" (FTC) at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) are presented. The content of lectures and practical work on FTC, which for ten years were taught and performed with a creative form of knowledge transfer to future machine builders and their acquisition of competencies. The positive influence of the FTC discipline on the inventive activity of students to justify the teaching of the discipline, as mandatory, to all bachelors of technical institutions of higher education in Ukraine is illustrated by the example of the Department of Metal-Cutting Machines.

Experience of innovation management in the process of creation and implementation of inventions

The purpose of this article is to highlight the Soviet experience of the author as head of a creative team involved in transforming research results into formalized inventions. As a result of cooperation between the industrial research institute and the military enterprise, these inventions were introduced into prototypes of new equipment. The research methodology used in this article includes analysis of patent activity, questionnaire surveys, the nonparametric sociometry method, and a methodology for assessing the satisfaction of inventive activity.The article discusses the challenge of increasing the patent activity of domestic inventors of new technology and how this can be achieved using economic and psychological factors of creative participation such as sociometric coherence, emotional-volitional unity, and intellectual and creative potential. It is important to note that the effectiveness of research in scientific and inventive activities can be assessed using financial, personnel, innovation, and scientometric indicators. Additionally, promising directions of inventive activity in the ergonomic support of the creation of new systems of products and technologies are outlined.

Organization and development of the design process in the world practice

The process of design, or project execution, can formally be viewed as the development of a prototype or prototype of a proposed or possible object or its state. The design process is based on professional knowledge, achievements in science, technology, technological advances, and mathematical methods for solving engineering problems, the basics of art, economics, pricing policy, inventive activity, regulations, legislation and much more. The beginning of the design is determined by the presence of the main provisions on the proposed object and the sources of its financing. As a result, investment feasibility studies and other studies are usually carried out prior to project development. There are relevant rules for the selection of projects, tenders are considered and the documents are finally approved. Design includes many systems, as well as the knowledge of engineers - this is an integral part of the overall investment process, the main participants of which are the Investor, the Customer, the construction department (Contractor) and the design company. Abroad, design is one of the most important stages in the implementation of urban development projects. Studies have shown that about 15% of the project budget is spent on correcting design errors, and more than 50% of project changes are due to poor design in the early stages [1, 2].
 This article analyzes the design process in various foreign countries, such as the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Singapore, Bulgaria, based on publicly available materials (regulatory documents, tender documentation, guidelines, websites of architectural bureaus and official websites of regional and city administrations). The approach to determining the cost of architectural design for the conclusion of work contracts is considered in two ranges:
 1) Range of territory – documents containing development projects for elements of the planned structure of the city. Architectural and urban planning concepts, depending on the type of documentation adopted in the country;
 2) Development range (buildings) – a document that defines the development project for the elements of the planned structure of the city, as well as architectural, functional, technical and constructive solutions for capital construction projects. Depending on the type of document adopted in the country, it can be draft, design or working.
 The study of foreign practice of organizing the process of architectural and construction design has revealed a number of principles that can guide the authorities in ensuring high quality in the development and implementation of urban development projects.

Government support and cross‐border innovation: The effect of China's innovative city policy on Chinese firms' patenting in the United States

Firms innovate their new processes and products not only within their countries but also across national boundaries. This is known as cross‐border innovation, and many countries have initiated policies to support it. But how does government support influence cross‐border innovation? Through the lens of Porter's diamond model, this study conceptualizes government support as slack resources and investigates how it affects a firm's inventive activities in an uncertain, competitive global market. This study examines Chinese firms' patent filings in the United States under the enactment of the “innovative city” policy. We apply matching and generalized difference‐in‐differences techniques to this staggered quasi‐experimental setting and find that government support stimulates firms' cross‐border innovation. We further show that firms with higher research and development capacity take better advantage of government support. Finally, we show that government support leads to a rebalancing of exploratory and exploitative innovation such that a firm that has conducted more exploration will perform more exploitation and vice versa. Taken together, this study extends our understanding of slack from internal resources to government support in the context of global operations. Findings suggest that government actions that improve the ecosystem of innovation in one country strengthen firms' innovation and competitiveness overseas.

MT36 Cancer Biomarkers from a Technological Perspective: Past, Present, or Future?

Knowledge about cancer has improved significantly in the last two decades, but there is still a considerable challenge to achieving precision medicine, which relies on validated biomarkers to better classify patients by their potential disease risk, prognosis and/or response to treatment. This study mapped the technological evolution of cancer biomarkers to understand the inventive activity, technical collaboration, advances, and technological trends in this scientific field through patent data.

MT24 Health Technologies Aimed at the Aging Population Are Not a Global Concern

According to World Health Organization, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years by 2050 will be close to 22%. This work aimed to evaluate families of invention patents (FamPat) related to the aging population, quantifying the inventive activity, technical collaboration, advances, and technological trends in the scientific field related to healthcare.

Local labour tasks and patenting in US commuting zones

Abstract In this article, we adopt a task approach to measure the local pool of capabilities which can more effectively spur innovation. By focusing on the core activities that workers undertake in their jobs, we build an abstract task intensity measure of occupations to proxy the ability in analysing and solving complex problems, as well as in coordinating and integrating people with different knowledge endowments, that should be especially relevant for the process of invention and innovation. We thus estimate the relationship between the local abstract intensity and the inventive performance, proxied by granted patents, of US Commuting Zones (CZs) during the period 2000–2015. The evidence provided, robust to a wide array of sensitivity checks, points to the extent of workers’ engagement in abstract tasks across CZs as a crucial determinant of the local inventive activity.

The geographical dynamics of global R&D collaboration networks in robotics: Evidence from co-patenting activities across urban areas worldwide.

The focus of this study is on the geography of robotics Research and Development (R&D) activities. The objectives are, first, to identify hotspots in robotics R&D worldwide, and second, to characterise structures and dynamics of global robotics R&D collaboration networks through detailed geographical lenses of global urban areas. We use patents as marker for R&D activities, and accordingly focus on technologically oriented R&D, drawing on information from patents applied for between 2002 and 2016. We employ an appropriate search strategy to identify relevant robotics patents based on detailed levels of the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) and assign patents to more than 900 global urban areas based on the inventor addresses. The co-patent networks are examined from a Social Network Analysis (SNA) perspective by means of robotics co-patents, contributing to a global network where urban areas are the nodes inter-linked by joint inventive activities recorded in robotics patents. Global SNA measures illustrate structures and dynamics of the network as a whole, while local measures indicate the specific positioning and roles of urban areas in the network. The results are original in characterising the global spatial emergence of this generic new industry, highlighting prominent urban hotspots in terms of specialisation in robotics R&D, pointing to a global shift reflected by the increasing role of emerging economies, in particular China. The global robotics R&D has grown significantly both in total patenting and also in terms of R&D collaboration activities between urban areas. Also, for the networks, growth is not equally distributed, but is rather characterised by significant spatial shifts, both in terms of cities declining or climbing up the specialisation ranking, but even more in terms of the spatial network structure.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights from Cyber Threats in the Global Information Environment

The encouragement of creative, scientific, inventive activity and business competition largely depends on the solid protection of intellectual property and related rights on the internet. The problem of such protection lies in the transnational nature of the internet, the absence of a unified centralized management, the difficulty of proving infringements, as well as in the insufficient regulation of this issue. This article analyses the protection of intellectual property rights on the internet in Ukraine, the potential and real threats to them in the cybernetic domain, and the key areas of related activity of state bodies and individuals. The research uses a method of synthesis and analysis, comparative legal analysis, and systemic and formal-logical methods. This article analyses the normative legal documents of Ukraine on intellectual property and rights on the internet, points out their shortcomings, and provides advice on their use. Recommendations are given on how to ensure the protection of intellectual rights through preventive measures and subsequent judicial and extrajudicial proceedings, indicating ways to ensure cybersecurity in relation the intellectual property of individuals.

The Jurisprudence of Patentable and Non-patentable Inventions: Nigerian in Perspective

Patent is an industrial property right granted by the government of a state to a patentee. It is an intangible, incorporeal and exclusive right granted under the Law to an invention. While an invention is something that has never been made or existed before. Patents are granted to inventions, but not every invention qualify for grant of patent, hence there are patentable and non-patentable inventions. An invention is patentable if it is new, results from an inventive activity and is capable of industrial application (s.1(1) of the Patent and Designs Act 2004). Several textbooks, case laws, statutes(local and International), internet sources reveal that Nigerian legislation inadequately granted patent to inventions, wherein it did not grant patent to some inventions which International intellectual property regime stated patent should be granted. The Laws of developed countries like USA have wider protection of inventions than Laws of developing countries like Nigeria. Hence the Nigerian Law is narrow in the inventions that should be patentable as against the International Intellectual Property Regime.

Green technologies, interdependencies, and policy

The present study explores the technological interdependencies between green and non-green inventions. First, we look at whether inventive activities in environmentally-friendly domains depend on patenting in related technological domains that are not green. Based on patent data filed over the 1978–2014 period, we estimate a spatial autoregressive model using co-occurrence matrices to capture technological interdependencies. Our first finding highlights that the development of green technologies strongly relies on advances in other green and in particular non-green technological domains, whose relevance for the green economy is usually neglected. Building on this insight, we detect the non-green interdependent technologies that co-occur with green ones and assess whether environmental policies affect this particular instantiation of technologies at the country level. The results of the instrumental variable approach confirm that while environmental policies spur green patenting, they do not displace the development of the non-green technological pillars upon which green inventions develop. However, at the same time, environmental policies do not enhance patenting in non-green interdependent technologies which would speed-up the transition towards sustainable economies.

How is Technical Creativity Possible?

The article deals with the problem of sources, possibilities and limitations of technical creativity. Technical creativity is defined in the article as the creation of objects that are qualitatively different from all previously created artifacts. The problem of impossibility, improbability and unthinkability of creativity is analyzed. The possibility of its solution in the case of technical creativity is considered. The role of the subject and the environment in the emergence of new objects is revealed. The limitations and conditions of inventive activity are considered, including the role of previously created technical devices. The methodological basis of the work is the three-act concept of P.K. Engelmeyer and the theory of affordances (possibility) by D. Gibson. It is shown that in ontological terms, technical creativity can be considered as the realization of those possibilities that are determined by the characteristics of the environment, in particular, physical laws, but due to various circumstances are not updated without the participation of the subject. At the same time, technical evolution should be considered in the unity of its own internal laws and human activity. Internal patterns are due to the fact that the emergence of new devices creates new opportunities (affordances) for constructive human activity. The role of the subject in this case is to actualize the potential, that is, the practical implementation of those opportunities that appear in the "man-environment" system. The limitations of technical creativity are logical, physical, paradigm consistency and praxeological admissibility. On the example of generative neural networks, the possibilities and limitations of machine creativity are considered.

The temporal value of local scientific expertise

Abstract Inventors located in a vibrant scientific community enjoy faster access to relevant publications. The key role of the local scientific community is to provide access to global knowledge and not necessarily to feed the colocated inventors with direct inputs. We develop the logic for these effects and provide empirical tests using dyads of publication and patent data. We develop a model that links scientific knowledge, codified through publication, to industry’s inventive activity. Our analysis includes three key steps. First, we characterize the knowledge profile of local expertise for French NUTS3 jurisdictions. Second, we match scientific publications to industrial patents to consider the specific scientific knowledge useful to industrial invention. Finally, we examine the extent to which the presence of a local related scientific knowledge base provides utility for local inventions. Specifically, we consider the ability of local inventions to more rapidly avail themselves of scientific knowledge when located in a munificent location. We find that location reduces the timing to access to relevant worldwide publications by almost 1 year. Thus, colocation with scientific experts provides inventors a timing advantage by allowing earlier exploitation of recent global scientific discoveries.

Identification of parameters of a combined piece-linear regression model

Subject of research: the problem of estimating the parameters of a combined piecewise linear regression model.
 Purpose of research: to apply the apparatus of linear Boolean programming to identify its parameters. 
 Methods and objects of research: the object of research is a set of indicators of inventive activity in the Russian Federation, the methods are regression analysis and mathematical programming.
 Main results of research: an approach to estimating the parameters of a combined piecewise linear regression model by using the method of least modules is described, which makes it possible to reduce this problem to a linear Boolean programming problem. A combined piecewise linear model of inventive activity in the Russian Federation has been constructed, which can be used in various analytical and predictive calculations. The output variable of the model is the number of patent applications, and the input variable is the volume of gross domestic product, the number of graduate students and teaching staff.

Patent activity in the field of decarbonization technologies

Purpose: the aim of the research is to explore the global trends in the development of the inventive space in the field of decarbonization and to identify the degree of their compliance with the patterns of patent activity in the Russian economy.Methods: patent data for the period 2010–2022, aggregated by the search engines of Rospatent, the World Intellectual Property Organization, Google Patents, Espacenet and Questel Orbit, were used to conduct the research. The analysis of global inventive activity in the field of decarbonization was provided for Class Y02, subclass Y04S and group B09 of the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). The analysis of patenting pattern in the Russian economy was performed in accordance with the codes of the IPC Green Inventory. The relative technological advantages of Russia in the development of technologies to achieve carbon neutrality are analyzed on the basis of data from the RTA (Revealed Technology Advantage) index.Results: it was established that the high dynamics of global inventive activity in the field of decarbonization has not yet led to a multiple gap between patents and patent families, which indicates that a large volume of technological developments in the field of carbon neutrality are at relatively early stages of market maturity. It was determined that the leading positions of developers of relevant technological solutions are shifting from Japanese to Chinese and South Korean companies that are actively developing such advanced technological directions as energy storage and its production using alternative sources. Russian copyright holders demonstrate a relatively higher specialization in developments for nuclear power and railway transport systems, unlike foreign representatives. The decarbonization areas represented by domestic developments in the field of alternative energy production are characterized by significantly lower values of RTA index.Conclusions and Relevance: the space of inventive activity in the field of decarbonisation technologies forms the ability to identify and analyse a network of both explicit and non-obvious interrelations of these technologies with developments from other technological fields. This approach determines the possibility of purposeful design interdisciplinary cooperation chains between developers of indirectly correlated technological developments and manufacturers of the end products.

Factors influencing innovative development and inventive activity: experience of eu member countries

The article is devoted to the analysis of factors influencing innovative development and inventive activity in EU member states. It clarifies the changes in Ukraine’s positions in international rankings including the Global Innovation Index, and the Global Startup Ecosystem Index. The authors havehighlighted the main problems of creating and using inventions in Ukraine and outlined the modern model of commercialization of scientific and technical developments that was formed in the world market. A set of measures applied to increase the level of innovativeness in the European practice is given. To identify the main factors influencing the inventive activity of the EU member states and to assess the nature of such influence, the apparatus of correlation-regression analysis was used. Based on the data of the Statistical Bureau of the European Union for 2009-2021, three regression models of the influence of independent variables on the indicator of the number of patent applications to the European Patent Office (per one million inhabitants) were built. It is substantiated that the priority for Ukraine in the conditions of post-war recovery is taking into account the best standards of European countries, implementing several measures to support scientific and inventive activities, and using intellectual property objects in a practical way.

УПРАВЛЕНИЕ УНИКАЛЬНЫМИ ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКИМИ КОМПЕТЕНЦИЯМИ КОМПАНИИ: СИСТЕМА МОТИВАЦИИ

The system of motivation for the company’s innovative and inventive activities is an important part of the company’s management system. Using the example of one of the large innovative companies, the system of motivation for innovative and inventive activity is considered. The system of motivation for identifying, creating, implementing and commercializing unique technological competencies (UTC) in the production of world-class products and services is considered.

Tracking artificial intelligence in climate inventions with patent data

Artificial intelligence (AI) is spreading rapidly in many technology areas, and AI inventions may help climate change mitigation and adaptation. Previous studies of climate-related AI mainly rely on expert studies of literature, not large-scale data. Here I present an approach to track the relation between AI and climate inventions on an economy-wide scale. Analysis of over 6 million US patents, 1976 to 2019, shows that within climate patents, AI is referred to most often in transportation, energy and industrial production technologies. In highly cited patents, AI occurs more frequently in adaptation and transport than in other climate mitigation areas. AI in climate patents was associated with around 30–100% more subsequent inventions when counting all technologies. Yet AI-climate patents led to a greater share of citations from outside the climate field than non-AI-climate patents. This suggests the importance of tracking both increased invention activity and the areas where subsequent inventions emerge.

Analysis of the implementation of the concept of sustainable development using the indicator method

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to perform an analysis of the essence and importance of the idea of sustainable development and an analysis of progress in meeting one of the Sustainable Development Goals in Poland and Slovakia using a system of indicators. The progress in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) of the document "Transforming Our World: Agenda for Sustainable Development - 2030" was analyzed. Design/methodology/approach: Achieving the purpose of the study required a structured research methodology, which included a diagnostic survey method, comparative analysis, and content analysis and desk research techniques were used as part of data collection. Findings: The realization of the analysis of the level of fulfillment of Goal 9 of the 2030 Agenda made it possible to identify the difficulties that arise from the specifics of the adopted research method. With regard to the level of fulfillment of Goal 9, it was found that Poland and Slovakia are gradually meeting the set objectives. A critical area in relation to Slovakia's development is the aspect of inventive activity, i.e. the country's ability to use knowledge and research results to reap potential economic benefits. Research limitations/implications: Through the implementation of the proposed methodology for analyzing data for Poland and Slovakia in relation to Sustainable Development Goal 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), it was found that monitoring progress in meeting the provisions of the 2030 Agenda using the indicator method is fraught with the following difficulties: the need to standardize relevant data for EU countries, lack of access or difficult access to adequate data in individual countries, generalizations and subjectivity due to the specifics of the indicator method. Practical implications: The indicator analysis of the completed research procedure contributes to the accumulation of factual knowledge and the identification of development trends, which is the foundation for determining milestones and strategic plans for the implementation of the concept of sustainable development. Originality/value: The analyses presented here complete the research gap regarding the diagnosis and analysis of the level of fulfillment of one of the goals of sustainable development with its assumptions by Poland and Slovakia against the background of the European Union. Keywords: indicator measurement, sustainable development indicators, Agenda 2030, sustainable development. Category of the paper: Research paper.

Spatial motions transformers for incorporation into robot systems – review of the Bulgarian experience

This work is a review of research carried out by the author on the synthesis and design of the spatial gear mechanisms, oriented for incorporation in various technical devices, especially in robotic systems. It contains also a description of the innovative and inventive activities of the author over the years. The study illustrates the elaborated through the years, basic algorithms for the synthesis of spatial motions transformers (in particular Spiroid and Helicon gear sets), which are based on the mathematical model for synthesis upon a pitch contact point. The content of the solution of the two main tasks of the synthesis - synthesis of the pitch configurations and synthesis of the active tooth surfaces configures the mentioned above algorithm. Through it, real models of Spiroid and Helicon gear transmissions are synthesized and elaborated by 3D printing subsequently, which are designed for incorporation into robots of various purposes