Patent Document ID: 8738419
Application ID: 13103661
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for determining a value of a product design, the method 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; 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 of the plurality of experimental designs of the creating step, 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; the determining of the respective utility values for each element of each category and for the at least one combination of elements is performed conditional upon that the subset of the concepts includes: for each of the plurality of elements, at least one concept that includes the element; and for each of the at least one combination of elements, at least one concept that includes the 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.