# Inventor Interview Checklist

Use this when collecting or confirming an invention. Ask only the questions needed for the current gap; do not dump the whole checklist unless the user asks.

## A. Basic Information

1. Applicant/company name.
2. Inventor names if known.
3. Product/system name.
4. Industry and application scenario.
5. Filing goal: core protection, quick grant, defensive disclosure, portfolio layout, or enforcement.
6. Public disclosure: sale, demo, website, paper, WeChat article, exhibition, tender, customer delivery.

## B. Existing Technology

Confirm:

- how existing systems usually work;
- which step/module causes the problem;
- why current algorithms/devices/processes cannot solve it;
- whether the problem is technical rather than only business/management;
- closest known competitor or internal old version.

Convert business complaints into technical problems:

- low accuracy, high false positive/false negative rate;
- high computing/storage/bandwidth cost;
- weak scenario adaptation;
- long training/deployment cycle;
- unstable recognition/control;
- difficult data generation/labeling;
- poor compatibility or difficult operation.

## C. Technical Solution

For method/process inventions, confirm:

1. input data or trigger condition;
2. step sequence;
3. each step's executor;
4. each step's output;
5. judgment thresholds or rules;
6. exception handling;
7. feedback loop;
8. final output or deployment.

For system/device inventions, confirm:

1. modules/components;
2. data/control connections;
3. local/cloud/server division;
4. model/data/rule storage;
5. update or synchronization mechanism;
6. security and permission mechanism.

For AI inventions, confirm:

1. data source and data screening;
2. label source and label structure;
3. teacher/student model relation if any;
4. training method: supervised, fine-tuning, distillation, compression, quantization;
5. inference location;
6. model versioning and deployment;
7. feedback, active learning, or retraining trigger;
8. evaluation metrics.

## D. Essential vs Optional Features

Ask:

- Without which features would the solution fail?
- Which features are only preferred optimizations?
- Which model/vendor/threshold/module can be replaced?
- Can the same method be used in other scenarios?
- Is manual review required or only optional?

## E. Technical Effects

Collect measurable or at least evaluable effects:

- uploaded data volume reduced;
- manual labeling reduced;
- accuracy/recall/F1 improved;
- false alarm/missed alarm reduced;
- model adaptation cycle shortened;
- edge inference latency kept within threshold;
- memory/model size controlled;
- deployment reliability improved.

## F. Completion Gate

Before drafting claims, the agent should be able to state in one paragraph:

"The invention solves [technical problem] by [essential technical means], producing [technical effects], and the minimum protectable closed loop is [steps/modules]."

If this cannot be stated, keep interviewing.
