Patent Data for Engineering Design: A Critical Review and Future Directions

Abstract

Patent data have long been used for engineering design research because of its large and expanding size and widely varying massive amount of design information contained in patents. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and data science present unprecedented opportunities to develop datadriven design methods and tools, as well as advance design science, using the patent database. Herein, we survey and categorize the patentfordesign literature based on its contributions to design theories, methods, tools, and strategies, as well as the types of patent data and datadriven methods used in respective studies. Our review highlights promising future research directions in patent datadriven design research and practice.