4. Conclusions
This paper describes the development of TPKMS which is a new construction patent knowledge management system with innovation orientation. TPKMS can be used by knowledge workers to identify and explore the technical problems and the possible inventive principles to solve the problems. Besides, considering the characteristics of construction industry, it is important to manage the patent knowledge effectively so as to In contrast, the TPKMS in this paper focus on technology innovation knowledge in the construction industry. All the knowledge is extracted from the public available patents based on TRIZ theory. The aim of the system is to help users to make new technology innovations instead of copying or applying the patents. Even the intellectual property holders of existing patents could utilize the system to improve their innovations. Therefore, the TPKMS is complementary to the previous systems and intellectual property is not an issue. Future research will focus on refining the existing functions and adding new functions to the system. Firstly, the volume of patent knowledge in the construction industry is increasing dramatically in the big data age. Therefore, one research goal is to find the underlying principles based on analysis of the big patent data. So, the challenge for future research is to combine data mining technology with the extracted information from patent data in the database. Secondly, in order to facilitate platform application, the functions of each module should be further improved such as visualization etc. instead of plain text. Last but not least, considering the complicated process of technology innovation, the platform could be integrated with other innovative theories or methods to develop a more efficient tool to motivate knowledge worker's innovative thinking and practice.
