Chapter 5. Invention Evaluation Teams
An invention evaluation team has a very valuable role to serve. This team works to create inventions (or intellectual property) and assess it for problems and solutions that suggest new and unique discoveries. This is accomplished by having an understanding of the laws respective to patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
An invention evaluation team is usually a small group of skilled individuals (maybe 5–10). The needed skills are, among others, effective listening and a broad and deep technical understanding across a wide spectrum of topics. The invention evaluation team meets on a regular basis to review patents and explore the development of strength of the invention(s). The most efficient evaluation teams will track and monitor the nature of invention ideas they review, while managing this intellectual property toward a much larger, more complex portfolio of ideas for their enterprise.
This team seeks to understand the problem suggested by each invention, the solution as described by the inventor(s), and the novelty in the solution. Non-obvious aspects of the idea are considered at this stage to ensure the idea fully qualifies as an invention.
The invention evaluation team focuses on prior art. Once the current art is understood, the invention evaluation team members may use a number of techniques for evaluating the idea. For example
Real-time Internet searches seeking prior art on other Web sites
USPTO adhoc keyword searches using a multitude of search strings
Focus on claims to prove or disprove validity
The evaluation team works with the inventor teams and tries to strengthen and prepare the idea for the more formal evaluation process. The evaluators want to cause the inventors to think about the problem and exactly how their solution solves the problem. At this stage, the inventor(s) through their work should be suggesting claims that serve to prove the invention solves the problem; these claims must be unique, original, and non-obvious.
Members of the team armed with defensive line-of-reasoning capabilities may want to be quietly waiting for the exact moment to speak up. To defend a challenge on a particular aspect of the idea is not a simple skill to demonstrate (or describe). Defensive reasoning is as much an interpersonal art form as it is managing a conversation based upon facts.