Patent ID: 7941335

Claim:
A method for determining a value of a product design, comprising: creating, by a computer processor, a plurality of concepts of a plurality of experimental designs, each experimental design including a respective assignment of at least one of (a) a plurality of categories, each category including a plurality of elements, and (b) the plurality of elements of the plurality of categories, wherein: (I) different ones of the plurality of experimental designs are formed in the creating step by different assignments of at least one of (a) the plurality of categories and (b) the respective pluralities of elements of the plurality of categories to respective portions of an experimental design template; and (II) each of the experimental designs includes a respective set of concepts formed by the respective assignment of the at least one of (a) the plurality of categories and (b) the respective pluralities of elements of the plurality of categories to the portions of the experimental design template; obtaining, by the computer processor and via an input device, at least one rating for each of a subset of the concepts; performing a regression analysis, by the computer processor and in accordance with the ratings obtained in the obtaining step, thereby determining a respective utility value for each element of each category and for at least one combination of elements in a plurality of categories; and determining a utility value of a concept, including adding the respective utility values of each element included in the concept and each of the at least one combination of elements that is included in the concept; wherein: for each experimental design, each single one of the plurality of concepts includes for each of the categories, at most, one of the elements of the category, different elements of at least one of the categories being includable in different ones of the plurality of concepts; for each element of each category, the determining of the respective utility value for the respective element in the regression analysis performing step is conditional upon that the subset of the concepts includes at least one concept that includes the respective element; for each of the at least one combination of elements, the determining of the respective utility value for the respective combination of elements in the regression analysis performing step is conditional upon that the subset of the concepts includes at least one concept that includes the respective combination of elements; and the determining steps are performed where the subset includes fewer than all possible combinations of the elements, a possible combination being a combination that includes the for each of the categories, at most, one of the elements of the category.