In some mechanical engineering devices the novelty or inventive step of a patented design relies heavily upon how geometric features contribute to device functions. Communicating the functional interactions between geometric features in existing patented designs may increase a designer’s awareness of the prior art and thereby avoid conflict with their emerging design. This paper shows how functional representations of geometry interactions can be developed from patent claims to produce novel semantic graphical and text annotations of patent drawings. The approach provides a quick and accurate means for the designer to understand the patent that is well suited to the designer’s natural way of understanding the device. Through several example application cases we show the application of a detailed representation of functional geometry interactions that captures the working principle of familiar mechanical engineering devices described in patents. A computer tool that is being developed to assist the designer to understand prior art is also described.

中文翻译：

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发明设计：用于表示新工作原理的功能几何交互注释

在一些机械工程设备中，专利设计的新颖性或创造性在很大程度上取决于几何特征如何影响设备功能。在现有专利设计中传达几何特征之间的功能交互可以提高设计者对现有技术的认识，从而避免与其新兴设计发生冲突。本文展示了如何从专利权利要求中开发几何交互的功能表示，以生成专利图纸的新颖语义图形和文本注释。该方法为设计人员提供了一种快速准确的方式来理解专利，非常适合设计人员理解设备的自然方式。通过几个示例应用案例，我们展示了功能几何相互作用的详细表示的应用，这些表示捕获了专利中描述的熟悉的机械工程设备的工作原理。还描述了正在开发以帮助设计者理解现有技术的计算机工具。