This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third IFIP WG 5.4. Working Conference on Computer Aided Innovation, CAI 2009, held in Harbin, China, in August 2009. The papers deal with advanced approaches in education and training; data mining; text mining; semantic Web; optimization and innovation, shape and topology generators; design automation; integration of CAI methods and tools into engineering; innovation process and engineering information pipeline; innovation in collaborative networks of enterprises; professional virtual communities as well as engineering design.