Competitive and Technical Intelligence ToolBox

Most of the times after receiving the patent analysis report by the vendors, companies or decision makers ask a question: "Very nice, now what I do with it?" It is very essential to avoid these type of questions from the clients in service industry and we have to understand, why does this response happens? Usually, it happens because the analysis involved in the patent analysis and mapping does not really understand the end objective of the client. Thus it is very essential, prior to commencing any search or analysis, the analyst or searcher must clearly understand the objectives and needs of the clients. Nest question comes is How do you know, what the objective is? First, you ask. Then, like a skilled salesperson, you go a level deeper. You ask about the objective behind that stated objective, or perhaps even the objective behind that, until you understand. Sometimes in spite of clear objectives there happen mistakes in the analysis. To avoid this the analyst have to use i...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Author: Amit Agrawal KPO from India - The new KPO outsourcing destination India has now established as the most preferred KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) destination for the companies around the world. The KPO has advantages of top Indian talent in the fields that require special skills, expertise and knowledge perfections. KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing), what is it? KPO is an extension of offshore BPO. It is the high-end activity of the BPO industry and is estimated to have a magnificent growth in the next few years. To processes the demand of advanced knowledge, analytical interpretation and technical skills. For sure, the average KPO employee is expected to have better qualifications, skills and knowledge as compared to his/her BPO counterpart. kind of jobs it covers: Fields of work that the KPO industry includes are intellectual property, patent research, content development, R & D in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, market research, equity research, data research, d...

A good article by Anne Tide There are several points to be taken into account when planning to receive a patent for your invention; and patent analytics imply the basic information when it comes to searching for various patents that have already been obtained by other people. The documented data will be used in order to learn everything about the already existing patents because this is actually the main condition to be applied when determining whether a person is going to receive a patent or not. Some basic issues are to be acknowledged before a person starts to search for the existing papers; for instance, the concept approach should be well defined in order for the search to be successful. Time and money will be thus saved by providing yourself with the necessary combination of terms that will be used in order to describe your own invention. These terms will be used as keywords in order to search for similar ideas that have already been patented in a particular area of interest. You...

As patents continue to integrate more with core business processes, business intelligence is a key component to ensure maximum efficiency. Most IP systems today focus on inventory and keyword searching; they fail to take advantage of large cost savings and result in missed revenue generation opportunities. By leveraging business intelligence applications, companies can save up to 30‐40% of their total costs through effectively applying quantifiable, repeatable metrics to their day‐to‐day IP operations. Approximately only 42% of all patent applications will be granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This means the filing fees for 58% of a company’s patents will be wasted every year because of poor due diligence. With the average patent application costing $20,000, companies filing 50 applications will lose more than $500,000 each year. While this is partially related to prior art availability, there is a much larger problem pertaining to quality assurance and reinforcement of a...

Different products enter the market everyday. A consumer chooses a particular product based on certain conditions. An understanding of these conditions gives you an edge over your competitors. Competitor Analysis Services provide a thorough knowledge of who your competitors are their marketing strategies, objectives, their strengths and weaknesses. Competitor Analysis help a company understand its position with respect to its major competitors in the competitive market and provide business competitive intelligence and to understand the key competitors’ strategies and so to provide a proactive, planned and informed approach to its own strategies in order to gain an upper hand. Cheers Interactive (India) Pvt. Ltd , Navi Mumbai, India provide consistence business competitive intelligence services, enabling their clients in making profitable strategic business decisions.

Prior art (also known as or state of the art) includes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. What can be prior art? Any publication, in any form, in principle qualifies as prior art. It includes, patents, scientific publications, textbooks, newspapers, lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions and any other disclosures. Also, the intended audience for the publication is mostly irrelevant. Whether an invention is described in a highly technical electrical engineer's journal, or in a junior high school textbook, does not matter. The textbook counts as prior art just like the journal, if both were published before the filing date of the patent application. Publicly available products also count as prior art, even though it may be very difficult to determine exactly what the product is made of or how it works. If a device is put on the market before the patent application...

Putting in place a sound strategy for protecting and maximizing a company's intellectual property can boost its future value , say Steven Meltzer, Michelle Marks, and James McCormick. This article suggests ten basic steps that you can take to build a solid IP foundation that will help attract funding from investors Step 1: Identify your core technologies Step 2: Audit your technology, understand your rights Step 3: Gauge your chances of IP protection Step 4: Get employees to assign inventions to the company Step 5: Implement non-competition and confidentiality agreements Step 6: Establish procedures to protect your IP rights Step 7: Use patent applications offensively and defensively Step 8: Focus on the scope of your claims Step 9: Keep informed of your competitors' rights Step 10: Seek low-cost revenue opportunities Link to full text of article

Patent literature is a valuable source of scientific information, and, while research published in journals is overproportionally cited in patents dealing with biotechnological and pharmaceutical inventions compared to the rest of the patent literature, the reverse is unfortunately not true. A recent study concluded that only 0.25% of articles covering all biological sciences (referenced in the Science Citation Index from 1998) cite patents. An obvious reflection of this neglect is the lack of a specific reference style format for patents in the instructions for authors of most biomedical journals, presumably because only few people ever ask for it. While this ignorance of patents as an information source might be considered to be a bigger problem in engineering and material sciences, a recent comment in Nature pointed out that some patents contain more detailed information than the corresponding scientific papers (in this case it was about stem cell technology). Click to read full ar...

The patent resource Patent Lens has been extended to cover Australian patents. “This means that for the first time, the full text of Australian patents can be searched, viewed and printed at no cost, by anyone.” The Patent Lens already offered free full-text searching in US, Europe, WIPO patent documents, including their references to their status and counterparts in up to 60 countries. Over 115,000 Australian granted patents and over 580,000 patent applications are now part of the over 7 million documents in the Patent Lens’ collection.

The use of patents in technology forecasting is made possible by advancement in computer technologies. Processing hundreds even thousand of records now can be done easily and fairly quickly.Patents are structured documents . As the technology develop, especially in the area of artificial intelligence, the document processing can move toward the unstructured document processing. Read full article

Patents are a very useful source of technical information. The public availability of patents over the Internet, with for some databases (eg. Espacenet) the assurance of a constant format, allows the development of high value added products using this information source and provides an easy way to analyze patent information. This simple and powerful tool facilitates the use of patents in academic research, in SMEs and in developing countries providing a way to use patents as a ideas resource thus improving technological innovation. Read full article

Patent analysis provides an overview of innovation and a method to track technological development • Patent counts, weighting, normalisation • Macro analysis; Micro analysis • Insight •• Technology trends •• Geographic trends •• Company trends • Important for: •• Competitive intelligence •• Mergers and acquisitions, R&D strategy etc. •• Prediction and exploitation of emerging technology •• Licensing opportunities Important point to remember: • Search strategy is key • Understanding of codes and classifications is important • Clean-up of the data is desirable • Useful techniques: •• Normalisation •• Averaging counts over time • Qualification •• Geographic spread •• Citation frequency •• Legal status • Patent analysis can be valuable for highlighting areas for further study and corroboration

The collection and retrieval of patent publications is a critical component of the company’s intellectual property strategy and, quite suitably, becomes work done by a specialist. Within many organizations, patent information specialists have the responsibility for determining how patent information is best made available and how it’s best used within their organizations in a strategic manner. In addition to technical literature, books and conferences/seminars, patents are a very important source of information for managers, scientists and technicians involved in research, development and in bringing forward new products and processes. Indeed 80% of what is published in patents isn’t published elsewhere. Successful innovation is thus inseparable from the proper use of patent information, both concerning the legal-patent aspects as well as the technical-scientific aspects of the innovation process. Dutch based GO opleidingen organizes a training program in which these challenges will be...

The article entitled “ Excavating the technology landscape: deploying technology intelligence to detect early warning signals ” published in IEEE, consists of good information on value of technology Intelligence (TI). According to author, Technology intelligence (TI) is a process by which organizations develop an awareness of technological opportunities and threats external to the firm and the opportunities present within the firm. There are two primary forms of TI: * Proactive scanning and * Reactive searching. The purpose of proactive scanning is to identify external technologies that have the potential to disrupt the nature of current business. It functions as the ~eyes and ears' or the ~early warning system' of the firm. Reactive searching is deployed when there are specific needs within the firm. The firm may define the needs or problems in a solution-neutral way and develop a targeted search process. The paper presents a set of approaches associated with setting up a tech...

Patents are intellectual property (IP) that may need to be appraised for accounting, tax, litigation and transactional purposes in situations that include divorce or bankruptcy actions, estate settlements, sales of businesses and company mergers (which might require valuing portfolios of inventions). In an article in Journal of Accountancy, J. Timothy Cromley has disclosed detailed information on " 20 Steps for Pricing a Patent ". 1. Check whether the patent is in force 2. Identify the context. 3. Gather information 4. Assemble a valuation team. 5. Read the patent. 6. Investigate the patent’s scope. 7. Talk with a patent attorney. 8. Inquire about the patent’s validity. 9. Inquire into blocking patents. 10. Consider synergies among patents. 11. Investigate foreign patent protection. 12. Consider the remaining life of the patent. 13. Analyze any prior royalties paid for the patent. 14. Inquire into any actual or threatened litigation involving the patent. 15. Identify...