INVENTING AND PATENTING USING HALF-CAUSATION: NEW PHILOSOPHICAL TOOLS FOR ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION

Abstract

This paper has two objectives. The first is to briefly introduce a readership in Engineering Design education to Half-Causation, which is a philosophical model for inventing and patenting. Following a brief introduction, Half-Causation will be illustrated using the well-known case of the centrifugal vacuum cleaner, which was invented by the British inventor Sir James Dyson in the late 1970s. The second objective is to present the outcome of a 3-hour workshop which took place at the University of Bristol in 2021, in which doctoral engineering students were introduced to Half-Causation, before being given an engineering design problem to solve using it. The problem was ‘how to reduce the probability of a cyclist unseating (flying over the handlebar) when braking at high speed.’ Instead of addressing the problem in the traditional terms of morphology or functionality, the participants were encouraged to focus on causal properties . The participants were divided into four teams, and they clearly got a reasonable grip on Half-Causation Branching and followed its instructions faithfully. The four teams developed 44 inventive concepts, albeit some of the same or similar inventive concepts were developed by multiple teams. The workshop ended with discussing the optimisation of the scope of sought patent protection, using Half-Causation Encapsulation . The paper concludes by recommending adding the Half-Causation tools to engineering curricula, both in terms of generating ideas and intellectual property, specifically patents.