User Experience Innovation: User Centered Design that Works

Concerns

When you are twisting and improving solutions, you want to make sure that you are not infringing on any intellectual property rights. Avoid blindly copying any competitor technologies (including, e.g., visual design), as this may violate copyrights.

If you insist on, for example, using a patented solution, you can sometimes find workarounds to avoid infringing on the patent. Many patents involving user interaction are defined very narrowly, and you may be able to create a solution that does not infringe on the rights (and is even better than the original).

Note that you cannot create a patent for a generic solution to a problem—only for a specific method to perform a certain task or to achieve a certain goal. If you focus on looking ...