Recent Patents of Product Design Technologies

Design phase, the front-end of a development process, is known to have the highest impact on the lifecycle cost of products. Presumably, it is considered necessary for product developers to legally protect the product design technologies that they have invented. This paper categorically reviews a group of selected patents, which were filed in the last twenty years, in this area of concerns. From the structural review, several patterns and trends were identified. The product development pipelines in corporations have visibly undergone technological revolution during the last two decades. Notably, design methodologies and product data management techniques were the prominent classes of patents observed. Furthermore, this work has revealed the recent focuses of the industry in the areas of collaborative design and environmental-friendly design.