THE PATENT DOCUMENT IN THE VALIDATION OF 'DESIGNING' DESIGN RESEARCH

The "Patent' document is accepted as evidence of successful completion of a design research project, and as a valid research outcome, in the UK Universities research assessment exercise. The status of the Patent document is however considered lesser evidence than the 'refereed' Journal article by those who adhere closely to the definition of research as "a systematic enquiry whose goal is new knowledge'.

New principles of design are embodied in artefacts through incorporation of new Patents. Patent documents comprise a drawing showing the essential characteristics of 'newness', supported by annotations and supplementary text. These characteristics are then embodied in the specification drawings of a particular product design. The reliability of the new principle is ‘self-evident' when the product is used; it either works as intended or it does not.

When a new design principle is proposed within a Patent application, the process involves checks as to 'prior art' by trained Patent examiners. There is not a requirement for the researcher to incorporate in patent documentation a narrative of the research process to justify the reliability of process or outcomes, or even to use peers for assessing the nature of an enquiry prior to publication, as in the conventional research Journal. All methods of enquiry used by the researcher, other than the ‘prior art’ search are irrelevant to examination prior to publishing a Patent. When granted, the Patent, as a new design principle, may then be challenged after publication, with evidence presented to refute the Patent's assertion of originality and reliability.

Karl Popper's notions of 'conjecture' and 'refutation' are useful here. The Patent can be considered to be a design research 'conjecture' open to 'refutation' later. Here it is not an issue of proving the case systematically for the new design principle prior to publication, but proving it systematically not to be the case after formal publication.

This perspective enables more use of the natural ‘creative’ methods of human enquiry prior to publication, for example those involving imagination, intuition, insight and invention rather than the more explicit systematic 'synthetic' methods of enquiry favored by Journals.

With analysis of the Patenting process, the paper aims to help answer the question as to whether using international Patent systems for validating some 'designing' design research should be of higher status in the design community. It suggests it might be more appropriate than using some validation practices of the 'scientific' or 'humanities' communities in certain contexts as it has more empathy with some kinds of enquiry involving designing.