An Ontology-based Multi-agent Platform for Patent Knowledge Management

We propose a cooperative Multi-agent knowledge management system to manage patent documents and support the invention process based on the patent document analysis. It helps industrial knowledge managers to retrieve and analyze existing patent documents and extract tacit knowledge from patent documents with the aid of ontology and natural language processing techniques. It allows the invention process to be carried out through the cooperation and coordination among software agents delegated by the various domain experts in the complex industrial R&D environment. Furthermore, it integrates the patent document analysis with the inventive problem solving method such as TRIZ method that can suggest invention directions based on the heuristics or principles to resolve the contradictions among design objectives and engineering parameters. We chose the patent invention for Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) as our case study. The platform and techniques could be extended to most cooperative invention domains. Furthermore, it reduces not only the time of patent innovation but also the risk of impinging on the patent rights of others through knowledge management system.