Ray Kurzweil's seven point program for creating intellectual property

1. Write the advertising brochure: who is this for and why you are doing it? Features, benefits, and beneficiaries?

2. Allow the beneficiaries to invent the product for you. Include the intended users in the design.

3. Understand dynamics of the group process. It’s an interdisciplinary process; understand each other’s terminology. Invent a new terminology from this mix.

4. Encourage thinking outside of the box by assigning problems to persons from opposite perspectives. (Example: linguists work on engineering problems; engineers work on linguistic problems)

5. You can learn more from failure than success. Turn your successes into failures (success has a way of covering up your failures): look for the failure in success.

6. Design for marketability. Identify the unique characteristics of your invention and why this is a well-leveraged fit for your target application. Rethinking the purpose of the invention.

7. Imagine if it existed and how it would work. Create a fantasy in your mind of how your invention will play out.