Competitive and Technical Intelligence ToolBox

In an article by Mr. Cynthia Cheng Correia , describe the importance of Competitive intelligence for companies. Competitive intelligence is the practice of examining the external competitive environment – direct rivals, clients, economic/regulatory matters, and more – to support the development of more resilient, robust strategy and tactics. The intelligence outcome is meaningful, actionable, and provides “an insight about change and future developments and their implications to the company. Effectively, CI improves tactical and strategic decision-making through understanding the competitive environment. Unlike business intelligence, which has become a catch-all term that is used to describe data mining and activities involving business information, CI involves competitive analysis and examines competitive forces within one’s industry. While competitive intelligence is concerned with industry forces, competitor intelligence distinctly centers on the activities of a rival. Finally, comp...

The The goal of Patent Mapping is to generate actionable intelligence from raw patent information, enabling timely, informed decisions. Intelligence is not just information. It is knowledge that has been specially prepared for a specific business need. Most of the professional are involved in data production and fancy representation, not intelligence. Here comes the expertise in converting the raw data into actionable intelligence. Patent information is content rich but often complex and inaccessible. Patent mapping is the only way highly complex patent information can be put into “plain English”, i.e., understandable form. Rational patent mapping creates actionable intelligence from raw patent information. Patent mapping intelligence has many applications, including avoiding undue risk, identifying opportunities and enabling key business, innovation and funding decisions. Patent mapping is interpretive distillation of large amounts of often complex patent data into one or more high-va...

Peer-to-Patent is a groundbreaking initiative organized by New York Law School in cooperation with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that "blows the doors" off of the patent examination process, opening it up to public participation for the first time in history.

The following are links to many patent offices worldwide. From the native language page there is often a link to an English version. AD AM AR AT AU BE BG BR CA CH CN CU CZ DE DK DZ ea EE EG ep ES FI FR GB GE GR HK HR HU ID IE IN IS IT JO JP KE KG KR KZ LI LT LU LV MA MC MD MK MO MX MY NL NO NZ PA PE PH PL PT RO RU SE SG SI SK TH TJ TR UA US UZ wo ZA

IPEXL has released the beta version for their Patent Search tool. Its really nice and provides many feature. Must to have a look for patent professionals. Features: Patent Search - Patent search over China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, S. Korea, PCT, United States, Europe, UK and Canada with translation link through google translator. Patent Directory - Patent search based on IPC class IP Market Place - Patents open for license.

The SurfIP IP Parade is a platform where IP/technology owners can evaluate, exploit and commercialise their IP / technology. It enables IP owners to market, license or sell their technology solutions and IP by listing it in the IP Parade . The IP Parade also creates a platform for the licensing and the purchasing of technology solutions through IP listings by inventors, research institutes and corporations. For IP Owners / Sellers / Licensors It provides listing by IP owners (from 23rd Dec 2005 onwards) is free of charge. However, IP owners who wish SurfIP team to value-add their listing may pay a fee of USD2500 for these value-added products: * Animation of their invention * Patent mapping report of their invention * Derwent Record of their invention * Market Intelligence report * Patent valuation report (subject to availability) * Patent commercialisation and business plan (subject to availability) For IP Buyers / Licensees IP prospects who are interested to purc...

This is a tool for patent searching, downloading and analyzing. Analyzing focus are on patent-families, citation-networks, assignee-networks , inventor-networks…etc. Download

Patents create value for their owners in a variety of different ways. One of the biggest problems with nearly all patent valuation techniques is a failure to be explicit about what kind of value they are attempting to measure. It is essential to have an accurate model of value types in order to identify the source of the information that is needed, and also to formulate the correct approach for interpreting that information. The Four Kinds of Patent Value Patents basically allow the rights holder to pursue legal measures to prevent others from practicing the subject matter. This is the reason why many people are quick to point out that patents are only valuable in the way that they act as a blocking mechanism, and this is certainly true. However, although it is very important, it is not accurate to say that the value of a patent is purely a function of its enforceability. In practice, there are different ways to use patents to create value, and people are getting more creative about it...

New innovation is a cost to the companies and it is essential to use and protect is property to gain competitive and technical advantage. Following are few important point helping in making a better strategic business decision to gain market competency. Invest for immediate product development. Fund R&D proposals with high impact. Strengthen an existing technology. Find IP holes & surprise new products. Estimate competitor's intentions. Identify synergies in potential partners. Place a "value" on licensed technology. Position a technology for out-licensing. Objectively assess the IP risks File to "fence in" an important area.

Planning for a next generation product is a stunningly difficult problem. Most of the time there are multiple technology options from which to choose. Often, the options are incompletely documented. As a result, technology selection has been a very high-risk proposition and fails often. Many organizations listen to the voice of the customer and to marketing research to make product development decisions. However, the customer is not always right. Some organizations have chosen to reduce technology investment or R&D risks by relying more heavily on licensing or acquisition decisions. But, licensing or acquisition decisions bring other types of risk and require organizational assimilation skills that are also unusual. Reducing risk in technology selection, licensing or acquisition decisions requires careful, thoughtful analysis and some form of a technology roadmap.

Patents in Commerce provides you with all the tools and know-how you need to successfully commercialize your inventions. Use them correctly and you'll have a 100% success rate. More than 20 experts show you how to establish initial low-cost protection (it doesn't cost 5 cents!), develop your ideas into viable products, secure manufacturing and marketing, patent your inventions with strong patent protection and license them directly to industry. Check out what you will learn You will learn techniques experts have used for years to have partners pay development costs...not the other way around like an invention promotion company. Good ideas don't need any of your money; there are others willing to invest. The PIC experts will show you how to find these partners and licensees. Follow the Patents in Commerce system and in just a few weeks you can be talking to potential partners and licensees and discussing your options.

An excellent book by By Bob Dematteis. Having a novel idea and turning that idea into cash is not as simple as it sounds. The process of creating an invention, protecting that invention, and bringing it to the marketplace can cost you a bundle. In today's highly complex and competitive world of business, not knowing what to expect and what to do will almost always guarantee failure. To help innovative individuals learn to navigate around the many pitfalls of inventing, Bob DeMatteis has written an up-to-date guide to all the important steps involved in inventing. Bob DeMatteis is a brilliant inventor. He has been directly involved in every phase of the inventing process--creation, patenting, licensing, manufacturing, and marketing. He has made his share of mistakes, and has learned from them. He has also had tremendous successes, and learned from them as well. Now Bob DeMatteis has taken his accumulated knowledge and turned it into a well-organized handbook for inventors. The infor...

Bulletproof protection Having bulletproof patent protection begins with the right strategy. It doesn't have to be expensive, you just have to plan ahead. Here are some simple strategies you can apply: 1. Write patent applications that have a broad scope. 2. Include all patentable subject matter: products, systems, processes, software and so on. 3. Use provisional patent applications as required. 4. Products falling under an umbrella of patents will usually be looked upon more favorably by licensees and partners. 5. Conduct a thorough patent search. By applying this simple strategy, you can save a lot of money and time. Just be thorough. Otherwise you may be launching a new market that will make it easy for competitors to enter and later on dominate. Patent tactics There are four basic patenting strategies you can apply. They are: 1) the shotgun approach; 2) the castle and moat theory; 3) cutting the forest, and; 4) patent-as-you-go. These strategies along with the fo...

The licensing approach used by smart inventors is based on partnering, not negotiating. We were the first to expose the partnership approach approach over ten years ago in our From Patent to Profit seminars. This licensing approach has produced millions, even billions in licensed sales. Here are just a few of the innovations licensed applying our partnership approach. It is interesting to see others trying to adopt our approach since its conception. Even invention promotion companies try to incorporate our knowledge and terminology into their websites and literature to try to make themselves look good. That shows how original they are. Foremost in a licensing strategy is whether the license will be exclusive or non-exclusive. If it's exclusive, what are the terms and conditions? Some key points to consider are: 1. How long will it be exclusive? 2. What performance guarantees must the licensee give? 3. What costs will you bear? 4. What competitive response will this caus...

The licensing plan First, you need to write down a specific plan. More specifically: 1. Develop a strategy. Will it be an exclusive or non-exclusive license? Will it be limited to various fields? Will it augment sales after your company launches the product? Will you be licensing a limited number licensees or staging them in? What incentives have you considered? 2. Do a SWOT analysis. This is a term used by licensing experts which means you need to analyze and evaluate your intellectual property’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is important, because your licensees will do this and if you’re not prepared, you’ll not be able to handle their questions. With these two steps completed, you will want to start taking action. Next: 1. Find licensees. Use New Product Summaries and the methods discussed in the web pages on marketing inventions. 2. Research interested candidates. Once a candidate is identified, research it to better understand it. 3. Start with a term shee...

Licensing your inventions can be an exciting alternative to going into business. It's usually the best way to defray the high cost of development, manufacturing and marketing. What is a license? Simply stated, patents give you the exclusive right to manufacture, use and sell products falling under the scope of the patent. In turn, a license conveys those rights to others. A patent owner who conveys those rights is called the licensor. The company receiving the rights is the licensee. The agreement between the parties is called a license. The basic elements of a License are: 1. You grant a licensee for the rights to manufacture, use and sell products falling under the scope of your patents. 2. The licensee pays you royalties. 3. The licensee must actively promote your invention else its rights are terminated. 4. The licensee keeps records which you may review. Source

Effective Patent intelligence can provide information about technological or market-related developments, based on a study of global patent data. Patent Intelligence data may play a critical role for decision makers in tracking trends in innovation, identifying licensing and sales targets, anticipating market entry and business white spaces, and assessing competitor strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. As such, effective Patent Intelligence can provide a business stakeholder with tools for which to make critical legal, R&D, product development, strategic or business development decisions. Patenting Solutions offers the following selection of highly effective patent and IP intelligence services and packages, to provide you with a critical understanding of your business environment Competitive Analysis Patenting Solutions can perform a market and technology search producing a presentation or map that illustrates where the industry is holding and moving, and where the com...

IP Marketplace is a venue for buyers and sellers of IP rights. In IP Marketplace you can see which patents, utility models, trademarks and designs are offered for sale or for licensing. You can list a technology that you would like to buy or become licensed to use.The listed patent and utility model descriptions are easy to comprehend, with focus on their commercial potential. When you have found an interesting patent or utility model and need more technical information on what the patent or utility model covers, you will find links to this under the IP information tab. Trademarks are divided into categories that give a quick overview of the classes the trademark is registered under. Click on the trademark to see more information on the trademark. In the IP Marketplace you can also get an overview of patents granted and trademarks registered within the last 14 days. You don't have to be registered as a user to access the information in the IP Marketplace. But you do have to be a u...

Purpose of Validity/Invalidity Search Determine whether a patent already obtained on invention is valid or not Validity of patent can be challenged during whole lifetime of patent (and under certain circumstances even after it has been lapsed) by filing opposition, re-examination, or invalidity action, etc. Time Range for Searching • In general, all literature published before priority date of the patent to be invalidated should be searched • Grace period for public disclosure – 12 months for US – 6 months for EP Validity/Invalidity Search is useful to: • Determine value of potential licensed patent by licensee • Determine strength of patent for setting minimum royalty payments by licensor • Invalidate patent in order to avoid infringement or legal challenge Understanding the request • Review patent(s) and background • Conference with the client – Which date(s) – Specific claims? – Specific client suggestions/preferences – Per...

The new PIUG wiki is designed to further the PIUG mission "to support, assist, improve and enhance the success of patent information professionals through leadership, education, communication, advocacy and networking." The PIUG wiki has information sharing, social networking, and discussion forum functionality. It is designed to complement the current PIUG website, which will be reserved for generally static and official content, and the current PIUG Discussion List . The primary PIUG wiki space is open to all patent information professionals worldwide, either in view-only access without logging in or with create and edit access through a simple signup procedure. Some content and features are limited to current PIUG members. For example, only PIUG members are able to create and maintain "Personal Spaces" that allow members to share information about themselves. These personal spaces are accessible to all wiki registrants and are analogous to profiles posted on L...

Dashboard is a term now being used generally to refer to a web-based technology page on which real time information is collated from various sources in the business. The metaphor of dashboard is adopted here to emphasize the nature of the data being displayed on the page; it is a real-time analysis as to how a business is operating, just like on an automobile dashboard real time information is displayed about the performance of that vehicle. Rapidly rising in popularity as the new "face" of business intelligence is the enterprise dashboard due to the user-centric nature of its visually-based approach. In many of the earlier "dashboard" applications the emphasis of creating a dashboard was the integration of information, but presently is more on generating actionable intelligence, thus enabling the strategic decision makers for better decisions. A digital dashboard is a customized solution for knowledge workers that consolidates personal, team, corpor...

- Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder and CEO, rediff.com, India - Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, naukri.com, India - Hrush Bhatt, Founder & Director, cleartrip.com, India - Vineet Nayar, CEO,HCL Technologies Ltd,India - Jonathan Schwartz , President & CEO, Sun Microsystems - Craig Newmark, CEO, Craig’s List - Mark Cuban, Owner, Dallas Mavericks - Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext - Matt Blumberg, CEO, Return Path - Alan Meckl...

The rise in the number of patents owned by major players in the market facilitated the emer­gence of a number of tools and methods that can be used to aid in obtaining patent and technol­ogy intelligence, and hence aid in directing the innovation process. These methods can help in providing directions for the innovation portfolio and perfecting the design of the product under development. Patent documents can be used as reservoirs of information that can be analyzed to assess the competitive position and expected competitive moves. The patenting history of a competitor reveals the technology road map they are following and provides insight as to future moves. Patent data analysis can also be used to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the competition's technological position. An examination of the file wrapper, for example, will reveal areas that the patentee agreed to limit and thus can provide guidance as to getting around a competitor's block­ing patents. The most valuabl...

Patent intelligence can provide so much more to a skilled business stakeholder, whether in a legal, R&D, strategic or business development role. Patent information can be used to anticipate market entry, understand technical and business white spaces, identify licensing and sales targets, and assess competitor strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, among many other lucrative uses. Importance of patent intelligence to product development It has been said that more than 80% of the information in patents cannot be found anywhere else. The importance of patent intelligence to product development therefore can not be overlooked, since patents are a recurring output of the product development process in many industries (and more all the time, as patents become more central to competitive advantage.) Specifically the information available from looking across patent filings provides unique perspectives on: * Who - Relationships between inventors, companies, attorneys, cited/cit...

Patent Intelligence See Delta hf. Patent Expiry - means simply that you keep yourself constantly informed about developments in a (particular) patent field - either to see what your competitors are doing, - find new technology opportunities - or just to be informed about the very latest developments in your field for some reason or other. PI is "Environmental Scanning" applied in the Patent Field. “Patent intelligence should be a key part of every company’s business strategy,” said Vincent Cassidy, Senior Vice President of Derwent Engineering and Technology.

The mantra of a patent professional is--novel, nonobvious, and useful! That is to say, in order to patent something, an inventor must demonstrate that her invention or discovery is new, substantially different from anything else that already exists, and has some sort of real use. Up until now, defining "utility" has been difficult, particularly when DNA sequences are involved. But on 5 January, the United States Patent Office (USPTO) issued final guidelines on the utility requirement that will have direct consequences for scientists wishing to patent genes or other segments of DNA. Patents will not be issued for mere strings of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs. If you want exclusive rights to a particular DNA sequence, you now must define a "specific, substantial, and credible" use for it. So, what does that mean exactly? Well, PTO examiners have actually been referring to interim guidelines that are very similar to the final rules since December 1999. For scientific examples and...

Intellectual Property is a boardroom issue. Patent intelligence – the transformation of content found in multiple patent documents into technical, business and legal insight – is a key element of competitive advantage. When applied to open innovation, the transfer of ideas and assets between innovative parties becomes a higher-value, shorter-turn competency. In an era in which more than 80% of market value is defined by intangible assets, leveraging patents for in- or out-licensing provides powerhouse opportunities for revenue enhancement and cost avoidance while building sustainable product differentiation. Importance of patent intelligence to licensing as related to open innovation Patent out-licensing is a key source of value extraction for all types of technology, service and product companies. Patent in-licensing is a growing approach to “fencing in” or “fencing out” innovation in important strategic areas. Both licensing activities together create the engine of commerce around th...

Thousands of patents are filed every day, covering a wide range of products from new genetic sequences and the latest communications technology, to eccentric inventions such as concentrated beer tablets, nappies for pet birds, and Chinese herbal medicines for purging evil and curing death! Patents are a valuable source of information for companies wishing to be at the forefront of their technology, but how do they keep up with the constant onslaught of new patents and sort the useful from the frankly wacky? This is where Derwent Information comes in. The role of an analyst is to summarise the content of a patent to produce a clear and concise abstract, identifying key areas of interest, such as what is new and the use and advantages of the invention. The analyst must then classify, code, and index the patent according to the subject area, which enables customers to quickly find patents of interest. When I first started, most of my time was spent training. This involved learning more ab...

Cell phones continue to offer more and more features. Not only can you check your email and surf the internet, but someday you may even be able to determine your significant others optimal baby making temperature! Check out this patent application filed by Samsung which states that: “[t]he present invention relates to a portable device for measuring a user's basal body temperature (BBT) and a BBT measurement method utilizing the portable device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a portable BBT measurement device and method which can detect a location of a user's eardrum via a predetermined distance sensor, measure the user's eardrum temperature, convert the eardrum temperature into the user's BBT and record the converted BBT into a memory, to generate the user's menstruation information from the BBT recorded for a certain period, e.g. a month, and provide the user with the generated menstruation information.”

Patent application for an invention should be filed at the patent office before the invention has been disclosed to the public, because otherwise the disclosure of the invention is "prior art" to the patent application and will be taken into account when considering whether the claimed invention meets the requirements of being new and inventive. However, some countries operate "grace periods" whereby if an applicant files a patent application within a certain time after publicising the invention then the earlier disclosure is not considered to be prior art to the patent application. Generally, a grace period allows 6 or 12 months for filing a patent application after a disclosure (see examples of countries with 6 and 12 month grace periods opposite). In most countries, grace periods only apply to disclosures by the inventors or the person who is entitled to apply for the patent, not to independent disclosures by third parties. An exception is the US, in which thir...