Wilson Syafinaz    Dec 17, 2020

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Patent filing workflow improvement (Learning-Launch)

Challenge

I am involved with coming up with innovative ideas with a team to streamline certain processes in my  organization. Our methodology utilizes brainstorming these new ideas in order to tackle challenges that  come up in the oil and gas industry. My scope of work takes me to deal with scientists, technicians, and  lawyers alike. The way of sending the message of my idea needs to be understood by a multi-disciplinary  and diverse background of characters. Once an idea passes the criteria of myself and my peers, it has to  undergo rigorous scrutiny by a team of attorneys that will defend the patentability of the idea to the  deciding members of the patent office.

Selection

Our team explored several design thinking techniques, we decided to attempt the learning launch tool.  We opted for the learning launch tool because it allowed experimentation to quickly test an idea that  would lead to a prototype.

Application

For our first learning launch, we concentrated on the structure/execution of our patent processing stage  gates. The original patent disclosure manuscript should be written in a language easy to comprehend  and suitable to the audience addressed. We wanted to see if we could shorten the workflow for  producing a patent from the existing workflow practiced. The current workflow involves five nodes: 1)  Approval of the manager; 2) Approval by the patent committee; 3) Approval of internal patent lawyer; 4)  Approval of external patent lawyer; 5) Submittal of the patent discloser form to the U.S. Patent and  Trade Office (USPTO).

If we have fewer nodes, then we will have quicker patent workflow, which leads to filing for more  patents quickly. We decided to merge nodes 1 and 2; as well as, nodes 3 and 4. This new prototype  allowed us to shorten the patent workflow down to only three nodes; namely: 1) Approval of the  manager who would head the patent committee; 2) Approval of patent lawyer; 3) Submittal of the  patent discloser form to the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO).

Insight

By applying the learning launch tool, our team was able to apply the what if analysis strategy of the  design thinking process. The prototype was tested through experiments, which provided a quick resolve  to the patent workflow procedure. Prioritization was practiced by the team which provided optimum  resolve to the issue and allowed the emergence of a viable prototype.  The result from the experiments  proved invaluable; it speeded up the process of applying for and ultimately have more patents granted  in a shorter period of time. The results obtained from the exercise provided Wow solution that works.

Approach

The team keenly followed design thinking strategies. They identified the problem through the what is  stage, then, they investigated ways to improve the situation through a myriad of iterative processes.  They reached a consensus to what turned into a working Wow solution to the original patenting  workflow procedures. The outcome from the exercise was tested through experimenting with the

Wilson Syafinaz    Dec 17, 2020

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prototype developed by the team. This issue is that the team is yet to find an even better workflow for  patent filing which leave us with an open-ended project awaiting an even more valuable potential  prototypes to be experimented with.

