Other Computer Engineering Commons^™

Open Source Database And Website To Provide Free And Open Access To Inactive U.S. Patents In The Public Domain, Yuenyong Nilsiam, Joshua M. Pearce

Joshua M. Pearce

Although theoretically the patent system is meant to bolster innovation, the current United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is cumbersome and involves a significant time investment to locate inactive patents less than 20 years old. This article reports on the development of an open source database to find these public domain ideas. First, a search strategy is explained. Then the operation and use of free and open source software are detailed to meet the needs of open hardware innovators. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the utility of the approach with 3-D printing. The results showed how …

Open Source Database And Website To Provide Free And Open Access To Inactive U.S. Patents In The Public Domain, Yuenyong Nilsiam, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

Although theoretically the patent system is meant to bolster innovation, the current United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is cumbersome and involves a significant time investment to locate inactive patents less than 20 years old. This article reports on the development of an open source database to find these public domain ideas. First, a search strategy is explained. Then the operation and use of free and open source software are detailed to meet the needs of open hardware innovators. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the utility of the approach with 3-D printing. The results showed how …

Sheep Updates 2015 - Ravensthorpe, Bruce Mullan, Kate Pritchett, Kimbal Curtis, Chris Wilcox, Mike Hyder, Leigh Sonnerman, Lynne Bradshaw, Geoff Lindon, Katherine Davies, Joe Young, Stephen Lee, Ian Robertson, Lucy Anderton, Hayley Norman, Ed Barrett-Lenard, Jackie Jarvis, Ben Patrick

Sheep Updates

This session covers fourteen papers from different authors:

1. The Sheep Industry Business Innovation project, Bruce Mullan, Sheep Industry Development Director, Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia

2. Western Australian sheep stocktake, Kate Pritchett and Kimbal Curtis, Research Officers, Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia

3. Wool demand and supply - short term volatility, long term opportunities, Chris Wilcox, Principal of Poimena Analysis

4. Lifetime management for maternal ewes, Mike Hyder, Research Officer, Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia

5. National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) for sheep and goats - what is the NLIS database? Leigh Sonnermann, …

Using Triz For Maximizing Information Presentation In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The modern software tools provide numerous graphic elements in their GUI, which demand more and more screen space. As the size of a display screen cannot be extended beyond a limit, it is typically seen as a constraint in a graphical user interface.

Looking from a TRIZ perspective, the computer screen should display all the information that the user needs (Ideal Final Result). There are various methods of addressing the problem of screen space, some of which are, ”using icons for windows”, “the desktop metaphor”, “the large virtual workspace metaphor”, “multiple virtual workspaces”, “overlapping windows” and “increasing dimensions” etc.

There …

Using Triz To Improve Navigation In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A typical user interface consists of several buttons, menus, windows, trees and other type of controls. The increased number of GUI elements and complexities of the GUI controls necessitate the user to acquire certain level of skill and efficiency in order to operate the GUI. There are many situations which further make the navigation difficult. Ideally the user should face no difficulties in navigating through the user interface. Any operation in the graphical user interface should require minimum pointer operations from the user (Ideal Final Result). This objective of a graphical user interface has led to several inventions trying to …

Using Triz For Minimizing Cursor Movements In Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Although a GUI is a revolutionary development over its predecessors, it suffers from a typical shortcoming that it requires a lot of pointer movements. As pointer movement is a slow process it affects the overall performance of a GUI operation. Besides too much pointer movement can frustrate a user. Hence, it is desirable to reduce the pointer movements while performing any action through a typical GUI. Ideally the user need not move the pointer to initiate a GUI based operation. In other words the pointer itself should automatically move onto the desired location on the graphical user interface (Ideal Final …

Using Triz To Design Error-Free Gui, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A graphical user interface has a lot of advantages over its predecessors. Its beauty, simplicity, adaptability, user-friendliness, visual clarity, speed and ease of operation have made it popular and suitable to a broad range of users. But a GUI also has certain limitations. Like any other type of user interface, a GUI can also be operated wrongly which may yield undesirable results. A good GUI should be intelligent to determine user’s intention and disallow him doing wrong operations. A less error-prone GUI is certainly more effective and efficient. Ideally the GUI should prevent users from doing any mistake while operating …

Arranging Display Of Gui Elements- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

One of the biggest drawbacks of the graphical user interface is that it consumes the active display area associated with the device. Whether the display screen is a part of a television, computer, or any other consumer device, the graphical user interface appears on the active area of the display screen. As a result the GUI masks a part of the display screen and the amount of information that can be viewed on the screen is reduced. Ideally the GUI should offer all its features without blocking any part of the display screen. The features should be readily available and …

Inventions On Three Dimensional Gui- A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The graphical user interface has become popular because of its simplicity and user friendliness. The user can do very complex operations through GUI by simple pointer movements. One of its major drawbacks is that it consumes active display area. Every icon, every window and every other GUI element occupies some amount of screen space. It is desirable to display more GUI features within the limited amount of display screen. Adding another dimension to a graphical user interface can yield tremendous benefits such as improving aesthetics, data presentation, screen-space utilization and user friendliness. The user can easily locate the objects in …

Inventions On Auto-Configurable Gui-A Triz Based Analysis, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A GUI is intended for the end user but designed by the developer. Even the experienced developer cannot realistically anticipate what options will be required by the users at a future point of time. Besides, even a well-designed GUI may not be felt convenient to all categories of users as the skill, expertise and requirement of the users vary from each other.

Although the user can best describe his requirement and therefore can best configure the GUI, it is not advisable for the user to spend time and effort to configure the GUI. The user interface needs to be customized …

Evolution Of User Interfaces For The Visually Impaired- Part 2, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Physically or mentally challenged people cannot use a computer in the same way a normal people can. For example, a person with disability in hands cannot use a standard keyboard or mouse efficiently. People having hearing problem, visual challenge etc. cannot interact with a computer like a normal person. So it is necessary to specially design the computers, interfacing devices and software interfaces, which can be used by the physically challenged people.

This article analyses the types of visual disabilities, different assistive technologies for different visual disabilities, guidelines for developing user interfaces for the visually impaired, software products available for …

Patentability Of Software Inventions, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

Software is very expensive to develop but very inexpensive to copy. Just by copying a software you create an exact duplicate of the original software and all with the same functionality. There is no difference between the original (which is bought) and the copy (pirated). The worse is when the source code is copied. The copier can even claim to have developed the software where the credit of the developer might go. The software developers use various methods to protect their source code such as copyright, trade secrets etc. but each having limitations. The developers are keen on finding legal …

Can A Triz Software Help You Inventing?, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

A software on TRIZ and/or Innovation can certainly supplement human brain and memory in order to speed up an innovation job. There are various TRIZ and Innovation software available in market. Some are too complex to use, some deal with only limited number of TRIZ techniques and some are having good features of innovation without much emphasis on TRIZ. An obvious task remains to evaluate them and find which software can help you best in inventing.

This article does not recommend or reject any TRIZ software per se. It only describes the expected features of a good TRIZ software and …

Inventions On Menu Interfacing For Gui Applications, A Triz Based Analysis, Part-2, Umakant Mishra

Umakant Mishra

The first part of the article analyzed five patents on menu interfaces. This part analyses five more patents from TRIZ perspective to find out their IFRs, Contradictions and which Inventive Principles have been applied to achieve those solutions.