JP2004046876A - Invention proposal information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system capable of easily providing proper advice with respect to invention contents, and brushing up an invention by reflecting contents of the advice to the invention contents. <P>SOLUTION: Query information regarding invention proposal information of a user is presented to the user by a query information processing part 106, an expert information processing part 108 extracts insufficient items of the invention proposal information regarding patentability on the basis of a reply result of the user to the query information, inquiry regarding the invention contents is carried out to a predetermined expert having knowledge regarding the extracted items, and an invention proposal added with reply information from the expert is notified to the user by a proposal preparing part 109. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

(4) The present invention relates to a technique for assisting a user in compiling the contents of the invention.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when an inventor has made an invention, the prior art has been searched by himself using a predetermined patent search database to determine the patentability of the invention.
In cases where the patent is not patentable or unknown, individual inquiries should be made to a patent attorney, a patent searcher who has the ability to search patents, or a system engineer or other engineer to brush up the invention. Was completed.

Further, as a technology for inquiring a plurality of experts using the Internet, a question receiving server connectable to the Internet, and a respondent selecting means for selecting a respondent based on question information from the questioner, When the requester accesses the question receiving server, inputs a question, and selects a respondent who wants an answer, an e-mail containing the content of the question is sent to the respondent via the respondent selection means, and the answer to the question is answered. There is already a technique of returning a response from a questioner to a questioner, collecting a fee from the questioner, and paying the questionnaire to the fee (for example, Patent Document 1).
Similarly, a system that can analyze consultation information related to financial plans, introduce diagnoses, and introduce experts who can provide consultations using the Internet, and requires the qualifications, work experience, and specialty of the experts The received expert information is stored in a storage means in accordance with a predetermined classification and rating standard, and by using this information, the most appropriate expert is introduced according to the user's request, and It has also been proposed to advertise the existence of a house on the Internet or to allow a user to select a specialist (for example, Patent Document 2).

Also, as a technique for circulating information between a plurality of persons, there is a method of authenticating documents in an office organization, which displays a list of persons to be approved on a screen, and displays a history of approval and forwarding in real time. A technology relating to a bulletin board type authentication board that is displayed in a list above has already been proposed (for example, Patent Document 3).
Similarly, as a technique for circulating information among a plurality of persons, when performing system design, when an operator changes standard design data of a design target stored in a shared database, communication control means is used. Has been proposed to deliver a review message including the change request to another worker (for example, Patent Document 4).

JP 2001-297261 A JP-A-2002-140560 JP-A-2002-175393 JP-A-8-235231

However, in the conventional method, judgments on patentability, etc. are extremely specialized, so it is extremely difficult for the inventor to determine whether or not the invention is truly patentable even after completing the invention. .
In addition, the inventor often does not know on his own what advice should be obtained in order to satisfy the patent requirements, and even if he finds out that patentability is insufficient, Often they did not know which advisor to consult.
Therefore, even if the content of the invention is good, there is a problem that appropriate advice cannot be obtained, and the inventor has to give up obtaining the patent.

It is also conceivable to seek opinions from multiple advisors in order to make the invention better.However, the inventor does not necessarily know many advisers who should receive advice, It was very difficult to get advice because it took a lot of effort, time and money.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is possible to easily obtain appropriate advice for the contents of the invention, and to reflect the contents of the advice quickly and efficiently in the contents of the invention. It is an object to provide a mechanism capable of brushing up the invention.

An invention-proposed information processing apparatus according to one aspect of the present invention is an apparatus configured to be connectable through communication with a user terminal used by a user and an expert terminal used by an expert, and An expert information storage means for storing identification information, a specialized type representing a specialized field of the expert, and contact information for communicating with each expert via communication, and a plurality of information relating to invention, novelty, etc. Question information comprising question items and answer columns for each question item, question information storage means for storing the expert type of the expert who should answer each of the question items in association with each other, and communication from the user terminal via communication Receiving means for receiving the transmitted invention proposal information; question information processing means for providing the user terminal with the question information on the received invention proposal information via communication; The question items to which the user's answer information to the user is received via communication, and the answer column of the received answer information is referred to, and the user has a negative answer regarding patentability or answer data indicating that the user does not know or cannot judge. The expert type corresponding to the extracted question item is specified by referring to the question information storage means, and a plurality of experts corresponding to the specified expert type are referred to by the expert information storage means. The above-mentioned invention proposal information is transmitted via communication to the extracted expert terminals of a plurality of experts, and an inquiry is made. Expert information processing means for accepting information on whether or not, identification information of a plurality of experts who have made the inquiry, information on whether or not each expert has accepted the answer content, With reference to the answer storage means for storing the invention proposal information to which the content of the reply from the expert is added, the proposal information storage means for storing the invention proposal information including the comment from the expert, and the reply storage means, It is determined whether or not all experts have approved the contents of the invention proposal information with regard to the contents of the invention, and when it is determined that all the experts have approved the contents of the invention, the response contents stored in the invention proposal information storage means are determined. Response processing means for transmitting the proposal information to which the user information is added to the user terminal via communication.

Here, the expert information processing means refers to the answer storage means, determines whether or not answers have been received from all experts, and when it is determined that answers have been made by all experts, The invention proposal information to which the answers of all the experts have been added is transmitted to the expert terminal of the inquiring expert stored in the answer storage means via communication, and the answer is acknowledged. An inquiry as to whether or not it may be made may be made.

The question information storage means may store expert types in different specialty fields as experts to answer each question item.

In addition, when a positive answer about patentability is obtained with respect to the total number of question items included in the question information, the ratio of question items considered to be likely to satisfy patentability is determined by a predetermined storage means. In the answer information received by the answer receiving means, the ratio of the number of items for which the user gave a positive answer to patentability to the number of all quality items is calculated, and the calculated ratio is calculated by the storing means. It may further comprise an evaluation means for judging whether or not the predetermined ratio stored in the storage device is exceeded, and in the case of judging that the predetermined ratio is not exceeded, starting the processing by the expert information processing means. .

An apparatus configured to be connectable to a user terminal used by a user and an expert terminal used by an expert through communication, at least the identification information of the expert and type information indicating the type of the expert. Expert information storage means for storing, questionability information comprising a plurality of question items related to the invention, novelty, etc., question information storage means for storing and associating at least one expert type information for each question item, Receiving means for receiving the invention proposal information transmitted from the user terminal via communication, question information processing means for providing the question information on the received invention proposal information to the user terminal via communication, Provide the accepted invention proposal information and the answer information to the question information accepted from the user on a Web page that can be browsed by other users or experts. Both refer to the answer field of the answer information received from the user and extract a question item to which the user has added a negative answer regarding patentability or answer data indicating that the user does not know or cannot judge, and the extracted question Proposal creation that displays items on a Web page and adds or combines the above-mentioned invention proposal information and the above-mentioned additional information with additional information processing means for accepting writing of additional information for the question item, and creating proposal proposal information Means may be provided.

Further, the system may further include a contribution degree processing means for calculating and outputting the contribution degree of the user or the expert who provided the additional information based on the number of times the additional information has been received from another user or the expert.

The invention may be an information processing method in which the above-described processes are performed by a computer, or may be a computer program that causes a computer to execute the processes.

According to the present invention, appropriate advice for the contents of the invention can be easily obtained, and the invention can be brushed up by reflecting the advised contents on the contents of the invention.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a system in which an invention-proposed information processing apparatus and a computer program according to the present invention are applied to a Web server 1.
In FIG. 1, the system according to the present embodiment includes a Web server 1, an expert terminal 2 as an advisor configured to be connectable to the Web server 1 via communication such as the Internet, and a user terminal 3. ing.

The user terminal 3 is a terminal used by the user who has made the invention.
The user terminal 3 is configured by a computer, and is configured to be connectable to the Internet using a predetermined browser. The user terminal 3 installs a computer program for creating an invention proposal in advance on a predetermined storage medium such as the Web server 1 or a CD-ROM, and summarizes the invention proposal according to a predetermined format. You can create a file.
Note that the user terminal 3 may be configured by a so-called personal computer, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) that can access the Internet, a mobile phone terminal, or the like.

The expert terminal 2 is a terminal used by an expert as an advisor.
The expert has the knowledge necessary for carrying out the invention, and includes, for example, a patent attorney, a patent researcher, a technician such as a system engineer (SE), a lawyer, and the like. The expert terminal 2 is configured by a computer, and is configured to be able to connect to the Internet and transmit and receive e-mail using a predetermined browser or mailer.
The expert terminal 2 may be configured by a so-called personal computer, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) that can access the Internet, a mobile phone terminal, or the like.

The Web server 1 constitutes an invention-proposed information processing apparatus according to the present invention.
The Web server 1 is configured by a computer, and includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a computer program executed by the CPU, a RAM storing the computer program and the like, an internal memory such as a ROM, and an external storage device such as a hard disk drive. Form the functional block shown in FIG.
The functional blocks shown in FIG. 2 include a question information storage unit 101, an expert information storage unit 102, a proposal information storage unit 103, an advertisement information storage unit 104, a reception processing unit 105, a question information processing unit 106, an evaluation processing unit 107, The system includes an expert information processing unit 108, a proposal creation processing unit 109, an advertisement information processing unit 110, and a status management table 111.

The question information storage unit 101 is a storage unit that stores question information regarding the contents of the invention for the inventor who is a user.
The question information storage unit 101 can store a plurality of question items as question information. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, a question number (question No.), a question content, a question form, this question item Can be stored for each question item.
The question number is a number for identifying each question item. In the present embodiment, the question numbers are grouped according to the content of the question. For example, a question item relating to the inventiveness is assigned an alphabet “A”, and a question item relating to the novelty is assigned an alphabet “B”. , And numbers for identifying question items within each group.
The content of the question is such that the user can answer in three ways, "Yes", "No" or "I do not know", and an answer column is provided for each question item. The question form is format information for displaying the content of the question on the Web, and is created by, for example, an HTML file.
In the expert information, the type of a related expert (for example, patent attorney, patent searcher, SE, etc.) is registered in advance for each question item. Note that the expert may associate a plurality of types of specialized fields with one question item (for example, a patent researcher and a patent attorney for question item A-1).

The expert information storage unit 102 is a storage unit that stores information about an expert as an advisor.
For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the expert information storage unit 102 can store an expert type, a name, and a mail address of an electronic mail as contact information for contacting each expert. I have. The expert type is a type of each specialized field, and in the present embodiment, various types such as patent attorneys, patent searchers, and SEs (system engineers) are stored.
Note that the expert may store a plurality of experts for one type.

The proposal information storage unit 103 is a storage unit that stores proposal information performed by a user.
In the proposal information, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, a proposal number (No.) for identifying the proposal information, user information for specifying the proposed user, a title of the proposal, and a proposal file of the proposal information can be stored. It has become. The user information may include, for example, the user's name, identification number, mail address, and the like. Further, the proposal information storage unit 103 can also store answer information such as advice information from a specialist. The proposal file may be a file in a predetermined format, and may be, for example, an HTML format, a text format, or the like.

The status management table 111 is a table for managing the processing status of the received invention proposal information and constitutes a response storage unit according to the present invention. FIG. 6 shows an example of data stored in the status management table 111. As shown in FIG. 6, the situation management table 111 includes a proposal number (proposal No.) and a question item for which the user has given a negative answer regarding patentability or an answer that he does not know or cannot judge the content of this proposal. The number (question number), the name of the expert as the identification information of the expert of the inquiry destination for the question item, the type of the expert, and the confirmation result from the expert can be stored. The result of this confirmation is that if the expert approves that the content of the response to the user added to the invention proposal is sufficient, the “done” flag indicates that the content has not been approved. "Not yet".

The advertisement information storage unit 104 is a storage unit that stores advertisement information to be provided to the user. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, the advertisement information storage unit 104 can store an advertisement type indicating an advertisement type and advertisement information. The advertisement information may be, for example, a file including predetermined text data, image data, audio data, or the like, or may be an address (URL) of a Web page providing predetermined advertisement contents.

The reception processing unit 105 receives proposal information from a user through a predetermined Web page. At this time, the reception processing unit 105 can receive the user information and the proposal information of the user, and issue the proposal number in accordance with a predetermined rule such as attaching the numbers in the order of reception.
It should be noted that the proposal information may be received by a user by using a proposal creation program in advance to register a file created in accordance with a predetermined format, or by accepting a content directly input by the user on a Web screen. It may be.

The question information processing unit 106 performs a process of providing question information to the user for the content of the proposal by the user.
This question information is provided, for example, by the question information processing unit 106 displaying the question information on a Web page in accordance with the form information, and when the user answers “YES”, “NO”, or “I do not know” for each question item. May be selected and answered.

The evaluation processing unit 107 performs processing for evaluating the patentability of the invention based on the user's answer to the question information.
In this evaluation process, for example, the evaluation processing unit 107 calculates the ratio of the number of question items for which the answer to the patentability is affirmative as “YES” among the user's responses to the total number of question items, and calculates the ratio. May be determined by determining whether or not exceeds a predetermined ratio. In this evaluation, for example, if there is a question item that answered “YES” to 80% or more of all 20 questions, the patentability is evaluated to be quite high, and if it is 30% to less than 80%, a patent is possible. If it is less than 30%, it may be evaluated that the patentability is quite low, and these criteria may be stored in a predetermined memory or the like in advance.

The expert information processing unit 108 inquires a predetermined expert about each question item based on the answer to the question information. In this case, for example, the expert information processing unit 108 refers to the answer column of the answer information from the user, and indicates that the user does not know (cannot determine) the question information or does not satisfy the patentability. A question item that gave a negative answer is extracted, and an inquiry is made to the expert associated with the specialized type in the question information storage unit 101 by e-mail or the like regarding the extracted question item.
When making an inquiry, the expert information processing unit 108 transmits the contents of the question item and all or a part of the proposal information to the expert.
When providing question information to a plurality of experts, the expert information processing unit 108 may, for example, post a proposal content and an answer content on an electronic bulletin board that can be viewed only by the designated expert, The e-mails may be exchanged using a mailing list between the experts, for example, and the contents may be provided so that the experts can see each other's response contents.

The proposal creation processing unit 109 performs a process of adding response information from the expert to the proposal information and providing the information to the user. At this time, the proposal creation processing unit 109 provides the user with the part added to the proposal information by the expert in a different form from the part filled in by the user, for example, by displaying the part in a different color. Is also good.
Further, when making an inquiry to a plurality of experts, the proposal creation processing unit 109 determines whether all of the inquiring experts have answered and the answer to the user has been accepted, When it is determined that the information has been accepted by all experts, the invention proposal information to which the answer content has been added can be transmitted to the user by e-mail or the like and provided.

The advertisement information processing unit 110 performs a process of providing advertisement information to a user.
The provision of the advertisement information may be performed, for example, by the advertisement information processing unit 110 providing a predetermined type of advertisement information in response to a request from the user. When the evaluation is determined, predetermined advertisement information may be provided.

Next, an embodiment of an information processing method according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the user obtains a predetermined invention proposal creation program in advance, and creates invention proposal information based on the program.
8, first, when the user accesses a predetermined Web page provided by the Web server 1 via the Internet using the user terminal 3, the reception processing unit 105 registers the invention proposal information with the user. Request (S1).
When the user registers a file of the invention proposal information created in advance using the user terminal 3 on the Web page in response to the request, the reception processing unit 105 accepts the invention proposal file and assigns a proposal number to the file. (S2).

When the proposal number is assigned, the question information processing unit 106 displays the question information stored in the question information storage unit 101 on a Web page, and requests the user to answer each question item (S3). .
FIG. 10 shows an example of this screen. As shown in FIG. 10, question information and an answer column for each question item are displayed on the Web page, and the user can select from “YES”, “NO”, and “I do not know” in the answer column. Good.

When the user presses the answer completion button, the question information processing unit 106 determines whether the user has answered all the question items (S4).
As a result of the determination, if the answer has not been completed for all the question items, the process returns to the above-described S3 and requests the user to answer the question information.

Also, as a result of the determination, if all the question items have been answered, the expert information processing unit 108 determines that the user is "unknown" or "NO" It is determined whether or not there is a question item for which a negative answer was given (S5). If there is a question item for which a negative answer was given regarding patentability as “unknown” or “NO” as a result of the determination, the expert information processing unit 108 determines “unknown” or “NO” The user is requested to select whether or not to inquire of an expert about a question item for which a negative answer was given regarding patentability (S6).

When the user has selected not to make an inquiry to an expert, and in the above-described processing of S5, it is determined that there is no question item for which the user has made a negative answer regarding patentability as "not sure" or "NO". In this case, the evaluation processing unit 107 evaluates the patentability of the invention based on the answer result, and displays the evaluation result indicating that the patentability is considerably high or the possibility is high on the Web page and notifies the user (S7). ), End the process.
When notifying the evaluation result, the advertisement information processing unit 110 may provide predetermined advertisement information among the advertisement information stored in the advertisement information storage unit 104, or May be provided.

Continuing to refer to FIG. 9, when the user selects to make an inquiry to an expert, the expert information processing unit 108 refers to the question information storage unit 101 and the expert information For each question item that answered "" or "NO," specify the expert who makes the inquiry, and for the proposal number, the question item that the user answered "I do not know" or "NO," and for each question item The type of the inquirer and the expert are stored in the status management table 111 (S8). It should be noted that the identification of the expert who makes the inquiry may be performed by referring to the expert information storage unit 102 and selecting a plurality of experts corresponding to the expert type of the question item in the order in which the experts are registered. You can select randomly from among them.

The expert information processing unit 108 sends the contents of the question item for which the user has answered “I do not know” or “NO” and the user's invention proposal information to the expert terminal 2 of the specified expert on a predetermined Web page. And so on (S9).
FIG. 11 shows an example of the screen at this time. As shown in FIG. 11, on the screen, the title of the invention of the proposal prepared by the user, the prior art, and the solution are displayed, and a comment column is provided for the expert to enter a comment for each description. I have. Then, when accepting the contents of the displayed proposal, an "accept" button can be instructed, a "register" button can be instructed to register a comment, and a "cancel" button can be instructed to cancel the processing. It has become.

When the expert refers to the invention proposal information and the contents of the question item based on this notification, writes advice information in the invention proposal information, and returns it to the Web server 1 via the Internet, the expert information processing unit 108 The response information from the expert is received, and it is determined with reference to the situation management table 111 whether the received invention proposal information has advice information from another expert (S10). That is, it is determined whether a plurality of experts are giving advice to one invention proposal information.
As a result of the determination, if there is advice information as answer information from another expert, the expert information processing unit 108 sends the expert information to all the experts stored in the situation management table 111 from the expert. All the pieces of advice information thus added are notified again with the content added to the invention proposal information (S11), and an inquiry is made as to whether the added content is sufficient (S12).

If there is an expert who determines that the added content is insufficient, the expert information is received again from the expert, and the process returns to the above-described S11 and S12, and the expert information processing unit 108 Repeat until all experts agree. As a result, the processing is repeated between the experts who do not accept the answer contents until each expert accepts the answer contents.
In addition, when all the experts have already accepted with reference to the answer status management table 111 and answered that the content of the added advice information is sufficient, or when there is no advice from another expert in the process of S10, Then, the proposal creation processing unit 109 creates an invention proposal by adding the advice information from the expert to the proposal information, and provides this to the user by e-mail or the like (S13). Thereby, the user can receive the proposal information in the form in which the comment is added to the invention proposal information as shown in FIG.
Further, the proposal creation processing unit 109 stores the created proposal file in the proposal information storage unit 103 (S14).
Then, the user returns to the process of S3, and can evaluate the invention again based on the content of the invention proposal to which the advice information is added.

As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, the question information processing unit 106 provides the user terminal 3 with question information on the received invention proposal information, and transmits the user's answer information to the question information via communication. From the answers received by the expert information processing unit 108, a question item to which the user has a negative answer for patentability or answer data indicating that the user does not know or cannot judge is extracted, and the extracted question item is extracted. The expert type corresponding to the specified expert type is specified with reference to the question information storage unit 101, and the experts corresponding to the specified expert type are extracted with reference to the expert information storage unit 102, and the extracted specialists are extracted. Inquiry to the expert terminal 2 by transmitting the invention proposal information via communication and inquiring about the inquiry from the expert and whether or not each expert has accepted the answer And information on whether or not each expert has accepted the answer, and the answer from each expert are added. The invention proposal information is stored, and the proposal creation processing unit 109 determines whether or not all the experts have approved the contents of the invention proposal information with respect to the answer content, and determines that the approval has been approved by all the experts. In this case, the invention proposal information with the advice information added thereto is transmitted to the user terminal 3, so that the user can obtain appropriate advice from an appropriate expert only by answering the question items without being conscious. .
Thus, the user can receive advice from an appropriate expert on the contents of the invention, and can brush up the contents of the invention by the expert.
In addition, since the Web server 1 automatically makes inquiries to specialists, it is possible to efficiently access appropriate specialists, and to make inquiries collectively even when there are a plurality of experts. You can get advice efficiently.

In addition, since the proposal creation processing unit 109 creates an invention proposal by adding advice information from an expert, it is possible to save the user from having to reassemble the invention proposal again, and from the expert. Can be smoothly provided to the user.

Also, since the expert of the question item is stored in advance in the question information storage unit 101 in association with each question item, the expert for the question item can be easily specified.

Further, when a plurality of experts are registered for one question item, the expert information processing unit 108 makes an inquiry to the plurality of experts. Advice from various viewpoints can be obtained, and the invention content can be further brushed up.

Further, when the expert information processing unit 108 makes an inquiry to a plurality of experts, the expert information processing unit 108 notifies the other expert of the answer of one expert. The contents can be referred to and brushed up as a better invention.

In addition, if experts of different specialty fields are stored as experts who should respond to each question item, for example, inquiries regarding novelty can be obtained from different viewpoints such as patent searchers and patent attorneys. Advice information can be obtained, and more objective advice can be obtained easily and quickly.

Instead of the above-described embodiment, the evaluation processing unit 107 calculates the ratio of the number of items for which the user has answered positively about patentability to the number of all quality items in the answer information to the user's question, and calculates The expert information processing unit 108 determines whether or not the calculated ratio exceeds the predetermined ratio stored in the storage unit. May be started. As a result, it is possible to extract only the invention proposal information having low patentability or having a question about patentability, and to efficiently inquire experts.

Next, another embodiment according to the present invention will be described.
In the above example, an example in which an inquiry is individually made to an expert based on proposal information has been described, but not only an inquiry to an expert individually but also proposal information on an electronic bulletin board on the Internet, A result of answering a question or the like may be posted, from which an expert or another user may write advice information.

FIG. 13 shows functional blocks of the Web server 1 in this case. Note that the same components as those shown in FIG. 2 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and description thereof will be omitted.
In FIG. 13, a member information storage unit 202 is a storage unit that stores information on specialists such as patent attorneys and patent searchers, and other member users. In the member information storage unit 202, for example, as shown in FIG. 14, information such as the member ID, name, specialty field, and mail address of the member can be stored. The field of specialization may be, for example, a qualification of a lawyer or a patent attorney, or a field of self-declaration such as company management or sales.
It should be noted that the specialist or user registered as a member is limited to a specific person to whom a duty of confidentiality is imposed in advance.

The electronic bulletin board processing unit 208 provides the member user's response information to the invention proposal information and the question information received via the Internet to an electronic bulletin board on a Web page that can be viewed by another member user or a member expert. ing.
In addition, the electronic bulletin board processing unit 208 is a question item in which a user has given a negative answer regarding patentability or an answer that he does not understand or cannot judge patentability from other users or experts who browsed the electronic bulletin board on the Web. The writing of additional information to is accepted.

The contribution degree calculation processing unit 108 can calculate and output the contribution degree of the user or expert who provided the additional information based on the number of times the additional information has been received from another user or expert.

A processing flow according to the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Note that the description of the processing from S1 to S7, which is the same processing as the above-described example, is omitted.
In FIG. 15, when the user selects, from the evaluation result, that an inquiry should be made to another member such as an expert, the electronic bulletin board processing unit 208 determines that the user is “don't know” or “NO”. The question item that has been answered and the proposal information are posted on an electronic bulletin board on a Web page that can be browsed by another member user or member expert (S208).
FIG. 16 shows an example of the state posted on the electronic bulletin board. As shown in FIG. 16, a proposal content column 2001 from the user, a missing item column 2002 indicating an item to which the user has given a negative answer from the questionnaire result, an advice display column 2003 from another member for the corresponding item, Is displayed.

In this state, when the member inputs advice in this advice input field 2004 and designates a registration button 2005, the electronic bulletin board processing unit 208 displays the registered advice information and the name or member ID of the member who has provided the advice as proposal information. The information is temporarily stored in the storage unit 103, and the content and the registrant name are displayed in the advice display field 2003 (S209).

Then, the electronic bulletin board processing unit 208 performs a determination process as to whether or not a predetermined time has elapsed from when the content of the proposal is posted (S210). This time can be set in advance, for example, for three days or one week.
When a predetermined time has elapsed, the proposal creation processing unit 109 creates an invention proposal with the content of the original proposal information created by the user and the advice information from the other members added thereto, and sends this to the user. It is provided by e-mail or the like (S211).
Further, the proposal creation processing unit 109 stores the created proposal file in the proposal information storage unit 103 (S212).
Then, the user returns to the process of S3, and can evaluate the invention again based on the content of the invention proposal to which the advice information is added.

Next, a process for calculating the contribution of each member will be described with reference to FIG.
In FIG. 17, at a predetermined timing, the contribution degree processing unit 212 refers to the proposal information storage unit 103 and totals the number of times the user has made a comment on each proposal (S301).
This counting is performed by the contribution degree processing unit 212 counting the number of times each member has made a comment for each missing item from a log stored in a memory or the like.

The contribution degree processing unit 212 calculates contribution degrees of other members for each patentability item (S302). In the calculation of the contribution degree, for example, of the total number of times the contribution degree processing section 212 has made a statement for each patentability item, the ratio of the number of times of the member's statement can be used as the contribution degree.
The contribution degree processing unit 212 displays the tally result on a predetermined web page (S303). In this display, for example, as shown in FIG. 18, the content of the idea, the provider, and the contribution thereof can be displayed for each proposal, each patentability item (insufficient item).
Then, the contribution degree processing unit 212 stores the tally result in the proposal information storage unit 103 in association with the proposal content (S304), and ends the process.

Thus, according to the above-described second embodiment, the same effects as those of the example shown in FIG. 1 can be obtained. In addition, by using the electronic bulletin board, any member can write in, and the invention proposal can be completed by reflecting not only experts but also a wide range of opinions.

Also, since the contribution degree is calculated by the contribution degree processing unit 212, even if comments from a plurality of members are added to the invention proposal, the contribution degrees can be easily and objectively calculated.

Each of the above-described examples has been described with respect to an example in which a system is provided via the Internet. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and may be applied to a system in a specific company using an intranet, a LAN (Local Area Network), or the like. Is also applicable.

Further, the computer program for the Web server 1 according to each of the above-described examples is stored in a predetermined computer-readable medium (FD, CD-ROM, or the like), and the above-described processing is performed by installing the computer program. Each device to be executed may be configured. When the above functions are shared by an OS (Operating System) or realized jointly by the OS and an application program, only the part other than the OS is stored as a computer program, and the computer program is stored in a computer-readable medium. May be.
In addition, each computer program for the Web server 1 can be superimposed on a carrier wave and distributed via a communication network. For example, the program may be posted on a bulletin board (BBS) of a communication network and distributed via the network. Then, the above-described processing may be executed by activating this computer program and executing it in the same manner as other application programs under the control of the OS.

1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an example of an embodiment in which an invention-proposed information processing apparatus according to the present invention is applied to a Web server. Functional block diagram of a Web server according to the present embodiment FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in a question information storage unit according to the embodiment. The figure which showed an example of the data memorize | stored in the expert information storage part concerning this form. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data stored in a proposal information storage unit according to the embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data stored in a situation management table according to the embodiment. The figure which showed an example of the data memorize | stored in the advertisement information storage part concerning this form. 3 is a processing flow showing one embodiment of an information processing method proposed by the present invention. 8 is a processing flow showing an embodiment of the invention-proposed information processing method following FIG. 8; The figure which showed the example of the question information display screen concerning this form. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a comment registration screen according to the embodiment. The figure which showed the example of a display at the time of adding a comment to the proposal information concerning this form. Functional block diagram of a Web server according to another embodiment of the present invention The figure which showed an example of the data memorize | stored in a member information storage part. 7 is a processing flow showing another embodiment of the invention-proposed information processing method. The figure which showed the example of a display of an electronic bulletin board. 8 is a processing flow showing an example of calculating contribution. The figure which showed the example of a display of the contribution degree.

Explanation of reference numerals

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Web server 2 Expert terminal 3 User terminal 101 Question information storage unit 102 Expert information storage unit 103 Proposal information storage unit 104 Advertising information storage unit 105 Reception processing unit 106 Question information processing unit 107 Evaluation processing unit 108 Expert information processing unit 109 proposal creation processing unit 110 advertisement information processing unit

Claims (4)

An apparatus configured to be connectable via communication with a user terminal used by a user and an expert terminal used by an expert,
Expert information storage means for storing the identification information of the expert and the specialized type representing the specialized field of the expert, and contact information when contacting each expert via communication,
Invention information, question information comprising a plurality of question items relating to novelty and the like, and answer columns for each question item, and question information storage means for storing the expert type to be answered for each of the question items in association with each other,
Receiving means for receiving the invention proposal information transmitted from the user terminal via communication,
For the user terminal, question information processing means for providing the question information on the received invention proposal information via communication,
The answer information of the user to the question information is received via communication, and the answer column of the received answer information is referred to, and answer data indicating that the user has a negative answer regarding patentability, or that the user does not know or cannot judge is added. Extracted question items, specify the expert type corresponding to the extracted question item by referring to the question information storage means, and refer to the expert information storage means for the expert corresponding to the specified expert type. The above-mentioned invention proposal information is transmitted to the expert terminals of the extracted specialists via communication to make an inquiry, and the inquiry is made. An expert information processing means for receiving information on whether or not the content has been approved;
Identification information of a plurality of experts who have made the inquiry, and answer storage means for storing information on whether or not each expert has accepted the answer content;
Proposal information storage means for storing invention proposal information including a comment from the expert,
With reference to the answer storage means, it is determined whether or not all experts have approved the contents of the invention proposal information with regard to the contents of the invention, and when it is determined that all the experts have approved the contents of the invention proposal information, Answer processing means for transmitting the proposal information to which the answer content stored in the storage means is added to the user terminal through communication,
An information processing apparatus according to the invention, comprising: The question information storage means stores expert types in different specialty fields as experts who should answer each question item.
An information processing apparatus according to claim 1. When a positive answer for patentability is obtained with respect to the total number of question items included in the question information, the ratio of question items considered to be highly likely to satisfy patentability is stored in predetermined storage means. Aside,
Among the answer information received by the answer receiving means, the ratio of the number of items for which the user has made a positive answer to the patentability to the number of all quality items is calculated, and the calculated predetermined storage means is stored in the predetermined storage means. Judging whether or not the ratio exceeds the predetermined ratio, when it is determined that the ratio does not exceed the predetermined ratio, further comprising an evaluation means for starting the processing by the expert information processing means,
An information processing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2. An apparatus configured to be connectable via communication with a user terminal used by a user and an expert terminal used by an expert,
At least, expert information storage means for storing the identification information of the expert and type information indicating the type of the expert,
Question information consisting of a plurality of question items related to invention, novelty, etc.,
Question information storage means for storing at least one expert type information in association with each question item,
Receiving means for receiving the invention proposal information transmitted from the user terminal via communication,
For the user terminal, question information processing means for providing the question information on the received invention proposal information via communication,
While providing the accepted invention proposal information and the answer information to the question information received from the user on a Web page that can be browsed by other users or experts, the user refers to the answer column of the answer information received from the user, Extracts question items to which a negative answer to patentability or answer data indicating that they are not known or cannot be determined, displays the extracted question items on a Web page, and provides additional information on the question items Additional information processing means for accepting the writing of
Proposal creation means for creating the invention proposal information by adding or combining the invention proposal information and the additional information,
An information processing apparatus according to the invention, comprising:

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