Searching for relevant patents using TRIZ and Patent Citation Analysis – a Case Study

Reviewing prior work and review papers helps to build guidelines to new conceptions in technical and non-technical innovations. The review work is commonly persuaded before patent drafting/filing or new novel research area or new business. Presently the review work is conducted based on journal publications, published patent documents, open web sites, etc. This review work typically depicts past innovations in technology or business. On the other hand Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) approach can help to map inventions in the past, present and future time frame. Further it can help to expand inventions at component level, sub-system level or system level. This helps to identify new opportunities, for science, technology, or business. In this paper we are analyzing prior publications in perfusion imaging by applying systematic approaches such as Patent Citation Analysis and TRIZ, to study the growth trends and explore new improvements. Blood perfusion assessment through Magnetic Resonance Imaging is widely used for diagnosis for different anatomy particularly brain. This paper proposes to replenish the review work done in the past and present. Further the paper shows how TRIZ can be used to explore possible futures in the area of perfusion imaging through Magnetic resonance.