TABLE OF CONTENTS TRIZ (Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch) is the theory of inventive problem solving (TIPS) developed in the Soviet Union starting in the late 1940s. TRIZ was developed based on 1500+ person years of research and study of many of the world's most successful solutions of problems from science and engineering, and systematic analysis of successful patents from around the world, as well as the study of the psychological aspects of human creativity (Mann 2002).
Dr. Genrich S. Altshuller, the creator of TRIZ, started the investigation on invention and creativity in 1946. After initially reviewing 200,000 former Soviet Union patent abstracts, Altshuller selected 40,000 as representatives of inventive solutions. He separated the patents' different degrees of inventiveness into five levels, with level 1 being the lowest and level 5 being the highest. He found that almost all invention problems contain at least one contradiction, where a contradiction is defined as a situation where an attempt to improve one feature of the system detracts from another feature. He found that the level of invention often depends on how well the contradiction is resolved.
Inventions at level 1 represent 32 percent of the patent inventions and employ obvious solutions drawn from only a few clear options. Actually level 1 inventions are not real inventions but narrow extensions or improvements of existing systems, which are not substantially changed due to the application of the invention. Usually a...
