Will The Contactless Mode Of Working End With the Pandemic?

With the era of social distancing setting in, the ‘contact-involving’ mode of working is a new challenge. It has created pressure on various industries to adopt and adapt to the ‘contactless’ ways of delivering services to the customers. In the present day, all the world’s leading enterprises are looking for solutions to provide contactless operations to their employees and customers.   
The applicability and effectiveness of these services have many aspects to it. Some businesses are convinced with the on-going ‘contactless’ mode and expect it to outlast the pandemic. In contrast, others as still apprehensive about its continued usage and are hoping for the previous model of direct interaction with the customers.
Here, we will try to point out its various aspects and highlight the ocean of benefits this new model contains in itself. 

Contactless is the New Comfort

Various new technologies are being bought into the market each day in the wake of COVID-19. Some of these systems/methodologies that have already started to prove their efficacy in delivering contactless delivery of services are: 

1. Development of new check-in software: The lockdown is starting to be uplifted by precisely abiding by the guidelines laid down by the government. The spread of the virus is still not entirely in control. So, all the operations are conducted while being distanced at public places and also offices. A method devised for the same is the ‘touchless check-in and sign-in.’ One such software is ‘The Receptionist.’ This software is in operation in many big businesses including, Sarah Suzuki. This app securely stores the database for the personal information of each visitor. Along with confidentiality, the app helps align the check-in with the personalized service for each visitor. 
2. Digitalization of the manufacturing process: Digitalization is paving its way into the product manufacturing process. The industries are shifting towards automation to reduce human-human contact. This shift is further helping in ways like employee safety, the productivity of assets, efficiency, and an overall enhancement in product quality.
3. Increased usage of online booking options: Although online booking portals are in the limelight since the Internet's emergence. Recent research has reported a significant spike in these services’ usage owing to the pandemic’s cautiousness. This increase is specifically substantial in industries like pharmaceuticals (online ordering of medicines), healthcare (booking virtual consultation sessions with a specialist) and tourism (hotel bookings), travel (flight and train bookings).
4. Cashless on-the-go: After declaring COVID-19 as a pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) recommended increased usage of cashless modes for making transactions. It was done with a motive to limit the spread of the virus. For businesses, these contactless modes of payment offer significant advantages and, at the same time, help to maintain hygiene standards. 
5. Contact-free delivery and pick up options: Along with contactless payment options, the idea of entirely contactless shopping has come up. Contactless shopping involves placing the order and making the payment via the online portals of the concerned businesses. The order is delivered at the doorstep or picked up at a preassigned time. This methodology is in an application at big retail stores like Bunnings and Westfield in Australia.
6. Virtual trial facilities: There is significant growth in the acceptance and employment of technologies like Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Businesses primarily dealing with makeup, clothing, accessories, etc., are resorting to these virtual trial modes. Augmented reality (AR) has enabled both online and offline customers to try the products virtually. Along with customers, AR is helpful to the retailers in the way that they can now showcase the products that are still not available on-site. Thus, enhancing their reputation. 

‘Contactless’ Methods Over ‘Contact-Involving’ Methods

Contactless methods have benefitted many industries. These include healthcare, telecom, businesses dealing with home appliances, etc. Considering the positive effects of these methods, market experts have speculated that the contactless way of delivering services can most likely outlive the pandemic. The pandemic provided the world with a new perspective and opened up the field for the emergence of modified marketing methods.

Several industries benefit from this mode; in Healthcare Industry, contactless technologies like Virtual reality, video transmission, access to patient databases, etc., are beneficial to healthcare organizations like pharmacies and hospitals. The use of virtual reality enabled smart glasses in pain-management therapies and other related fields in another example.

In the clothing and accessories industry, virtual trials have enabled businesses to offer their online and offline customers ‘touchless’ trial sessions. This mode has ruled out the need to be well-equipped with all the products on-site. Contactless delivery and pick-up services are handy for grocery stores. It has decreased the chances of rush at these stores. Considering this advantage, the grocery store can continue practicing this even after the pandemic ends.

Contactless mode of marketing has equipped the employees and businesses with automated technologies like NLP (Natural Language Processing). NLP has helped overcome the language and cultural voids that earlier were considered barriers to effective communication between employees and customers.

The pre-pandemic working model that involved direct interactions between the involved parties is now discouraged by many industries. The main reason is the fortune that it cost to the organization. Virtual alternatives are proving to be better in this regard.

Possible Challenges

Despite the countless benefits that contactless services are providing businesses with, specific challenges limit its widespread usage. Some of these are:

1. Acceptance: Many businesses, especially the big ones, are reluctant to adopt these positive disruption methods. 
2. Employing a new technically-skilled workforce: After years of pursuing the ‘contact’ modes of business, switching to the ‘contactless’ methods requires hiring a new workforce that is appropriately skilled.
3. Difficulties in data collection: Data collection in the contactless mode uses e-forms, but there is a possibility of less-reliable data in this case.
4. Coordinating among various outlets: The efficiency of digital connectedness is questioned for keeping the operations at various outlets in sync. This mode requires highly updated technicians and security-ensuring software to prevent the leak of sensitive information.

Conclusion

There is an indelible effect in consumer behavior in the wake of a pandemic. Every individual and even businesses have prioritized health and sanitization. This requirement has pressured us to limit physical contact, thereby replacing it with contactless services. Several technologies have come up in the market to achieve the same. These technologies have been considered as better than the previous ones by some industries. In contrast, some enterprises are still resorting to moving back to older ‘contact-involving’ modes of running businesses. The formerly mentioned businesses mention the possibility of continued usage of these technologies even after the pandemic ends. 

Patents and Its Unknowns

It is seen that about 80% of published technology and science information contained in patents is not published anywhere else. They are millions of published patents and application references available for review by the public. This humongous trove of information can be made useful by identifying critical and relevant references in a given technology and then by analyzing those references in a manner that provides information that can amount to actionable decision making.

What is the patent landscape analysis?

Patent landscape analysis which is often referred to as “patent mapping” is a multi-process, using computer software and human intelligence, to sort through, organize and extract vast amounts of actionable information. A completed patent landscape analysis project derives insights on filing/publication trends(Time-wise & Technology-wise), top assignees/key players within the technology and their technology-wise trends, top inventors working in a particular area, different inventions evolving over the years in a particular field, technology spread across different countries, and different categories into which the technology can be divided into (taxonomy) and their number and kind of patents filed in those categories. It would also cover the geographical distribution of patents filed specific to a domain or specific to a player, key/unique patents filed in a particular domain or by a particular player, R&D areas a company can focus-on for future production.

What would be the result of the patent landscape analysis?

The study would conclude results in the following categories:

• Patenting activities
• Major Companies or Universities
• Key Patents
• New Players
• IP Collaboration Networks
• Exploited Fields
• Uncrowded Areas
• In-License Opportunities
• Out-Licensing Opportunities

Types of patent landscape analysis

Essentially patent landscape studies are of two types, domain focused and player-focused or a combination of thereof.

Domain Focused

If the initial findings were conducted based on a patent search focus on a technical domain. The landscape analysis search helps to better understand a particular domain by using patent literature and derive insights based on a patent taxonomy extracted. This type of report can be used by R&D and product development teams.

A comprehensive study would be carried out on a domain focused landscape where the recent technologies are studied in-depth over the years and analyzed for further research.

Furthermore, this type of study also helps in identifying whitespaces. This is done by further analyzing the domain focused landscape for technical areas with low or no patent filing that are then identified as white spaces in the technology for further research.

Player Focused

If the initial set of patents was searched based on one or more players, this type of study is called player focused where the criteria in filtering the search would be focused on patent filers such as colleges, research units, companies, and government-funded organizations.

The studies focus on the type of patent filings done by particular players. It also closely monitors their research and business interests by analyzing their patent portfolio.

The combination of the two, player and domain focused studies results in a Competitive Intelligence Report (CTR), where a company is continuously monitoring the patent activities of one or more of its competitors. This would help a business to keep their teams well informed of the competitor’s activities and well-directed towards understanding the current market and its future trend.

This type of study also helps in carrying out M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions), where a company’s patent portfolio used to calculate its value in terms of intangible assets and its worth.

Importance of Freedom to Operate Search in Launching New Products in the Market

The companies conduct market research, before launching the product in the market, conduct market research to ensure that they have a successful product. Organizations might have distinct reasons of their own to conduct market research. Some of the reasons are below:

• Check if there is any requirement for their product.

• Recognize the market to launch its product

• Know about the competitors

• Build a plan for marketing

• Come up with the pricing.

It is essential to conduct market research, but also it is crucial to find out if your product has Freedom to Operate (FTO).

Now you might be thinking if this has to be done by obtaining a license from the government professionals. But, this is nothing to do with the license. FTO is relevant to find out if your product or process will infringe on the claims of issued or pending patent applications. The product infringes upon the patent rights of any other product. If it violates, then you are required to strategize the launch of your product according to it.

Do you know what is FTO or Freedom to Operate and why you need to consider it?

In simple words, FTO is the freedom to commercialize a process without infringing on the rights of other patents. Commercialization of the infringing products might result in expensive lawsuits. Thus, an FTO search is highly essential to carry out before the launch of the product in the market.

How is FTO Search conducted?

It is required to be noted that the rights of patents are territorial. For instance, if anyone has a patent over a particular kind of “laptop” in the US and not in the UK, then one can launch that “laptop” in the UK without the stress of infringing the US patent. Thus, an FTO analysis for any process or product is particular to a territory and considers the patents in the region. So, if you are going to commercialize any product and want to find out whether you have the freedom to operate in the US, related patents in the US are taken into consideration.

To seek out, if your product is infringing on the patent rights of others in some country, a search is needed to discover all the related patents in that country. This search will consider the granted patents as well as patent applications that are not yet granted into consideration.

Now you might ask, why to consider the patent forms which are yet not granted, and how can your product be infringing upon such kind of patent forms. Well to answer this question, a published patent that might be granted in the future, and once a patent is granted, they have the complete right to sue some product which has infringed their own patent rights.

Why carry out FTO search analysis and what advantages you can gain?

The Freedom to Operate search is required to be carried out at an initial stage of the development of the product, such that you do not acquire vast costs of development in the process of developing infringing products that do not come in a legal issue later, as the charges of infringement.

Some of the advantages of FTO are listed below:

• Reduces the risk of getting sued by other companies, for having infringed upon their patent rights
• The FTO search can dig out the patents deeper which have been expired. Additionally, there might be several useful technologies which can be utilized from these expired patents
• Get a list of patents which are related to your technology or products and help you build strategies like:

1. You are purchasing the patents which are related to your product such that you can get the FTO rights in that region.
2. Getting a license from the patent holder for a particular time by working out a payment option. This will provide you with the complete right to operate without infringing on the other patent rights.
3. If you are having a patent of your own, then you can try to come up with cross-licensing of the patents to get the benefits.
4. Redesigning your product/service in a way such that it does not infringe upon other patents rights
5. Invalidate and try the patents in question such that you can gain FTO in the desired region

Conclusion

At last, Freedom to Operate search is an essential step which every technology organization is required to take before launching their product in the market such as to avoid costly lawsuits and get the knowledge about strategies which they can adopt to get FTO in the concerned territory.

Are you a technology company? Want to launch your product in the market? Then, get FTO analysis done by the Ingenious e-Brain experts. We can provide you with a complete search and help you adopt better strategies.

Technical Evaluation and Market Penetration of Carbon Captures and Utilization

Manufacturing industries play a very important role in modern days, without industries modern life is impossible to think, rapidly increasing population, preference of comfort, modern and innovative technologies and tendency to do work in minimum time is driving the industrialization of almost every sector and every region throughout the globe. These industries are also become a source of emission of greenhouse gases majorly Carbon Dioxide during the manufacturing of various product and it is not a very new thing that Carbon Dioxide emission impacts the environment negatively, Carbon dioxide drives climate change when released to the atmosphere.

Alternatively, Carbon Dioxide could be captured and utilized as a carbon source for the manufacturing of different chemicals whose raw material is Carbon or Carbon dioxide, the basic idea of capturing Carbon Dioxide and preventing it from being released into the atmosphere was first suggested in 1977 using existing technology in new ways. Carbon Dioxide capture technology has been used since the 1920s for separating Carbon Dioxide sometimes found in natural gas reservoirs from the saleable methane gas.

Carbon capture and utilization is the aim to use the captured carbon dioxide for conversion into other substances or products with higher economic value while retaining the carbon neutrality of the production processes.

Capture and utilization Technologies:

Carbon utilization technologies can generate revenue that can offset some of the costs of capture and sequestration. Carbon Dioxide can be used to produce fuels, carbonates, polymers and chemicals, due to political and environmental support carbon capture and utilization has the potential to create a new economy for Carbon Dioxide, as used as raw material.

Carbon capture and utilization may delay carbon emissions to the atmosphere while reducing the consumption of the original feedstock and avoiding the emission of other substances associated with them.

Carbon Capture:

There are three different configurations of technologies for capture exist:

1. Post-combustion capture

2. Pre-combustion capture

3. Oxy-fuel combustion

Post-combustion Capture:

In post-combustion carbon capture, Carbon Dioxide is separated or captured after the combustion of fossil fuel. The principal challenge in post-combustion capture is separating the Carbon Dioxide generated during combustion from the large amounts of nitrogen found in the flue gas. An array of different techniques is available including the use of solvents, sorbents, and membranes (and novel concepts that can include hybrid technologies) all properly designed for operation at post-combustion conditions.

Pre-combustion Capture:

In pre-combustion carbon capture, Carbon Dioxide is separated or captured before the combustion of fossil fuel. Pre-combustion capture involves the reaction of a fuel with oxygen or air and in some cases steam to produce a gas mainly composed of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which is known as synthesis gas (syngas) or fuel gas. The produced carbon monoxide is reacted with steam in a catalytic reactor, called shift converter to give Carbon Dioxide and more hydrogen. Carbon Dioxide is then separated, usually by cryogenic distillation or chemical absorption process.

Oxy-fuel Combustion:

In oxy-fuel combustion, nearly pure oxygen is used for combustion instead of ambient air, and this results in a flue gas that is mainly Carbon Dioxide and water, which are separated by condensing water. Three major advantages of this method are high Carbon Dioxide concentration in the output stream (above 80% v/v), high flame temperature, and easy separation of exhaust gases.

There are many technologies use under these technologies such as membrane which can be understood by the following figure:

Captured Carbon Utilization:

Captured carbon can be utilized in two ways which are categorized on the basis of utilization pathway:

1. CO2 conversion technology

2. CO2 non-conversion technology

CO2 Conversion Technology:

CO2 conversion technologies that convert CO2 into chemical and biochemical via numerous reactions with a focus on front-running technologies that are at, or close to large-scale demonstration or commercialization.

The CO2 conversion technologies are grouped according to the technological routes used, such as electrochemical, photocatalytic and photosynthetic, catalytic, biological process (using microbes and enzymes), copolymerization and mineralization.

With appropriate enzymes or bacteria, CO2 can be converted into chemicals through bioreactions. One advantage of bioconversion is that it normally takes place at low temperature and pressure, so energy consumption is low. The process is, in general, simple, with main bioreactor(s) and a product-separation/purification process leading to low costs. The processes can take the exhaust from emission sources without the need to treat and purify the fuel gas.

CO2 Non-conversion Technology:

CO2 Non- conversion technologies that include direct use, by which CO2 is not chemically altered. Among such alternatives, the injection of supercritical CO2 into depleted oil wells to enhance the further recovery of oil is well established. Indeed, this is presently the only commercially viable technology adding value to large volumes to CO2 in the order of magnitude of emissions from fossil fuel-based energy generation.

Different Example of the utilization of captured CO2 based on utilization pathway areas in the following figure:

Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization Technology Readiness Level

Political Support for Carbon Capture and Utilization

There are several reinforcing elements of the policy-making process that are critical to accelerate the deployment of CCS. These include:

1. The setting of credible and economy-wide emissions reduction targets, consistent with the aims of the Paris Agreement.
2. Designing policy to achieve medium-term emissions reductions in a range of sectors and in line with these longer-term targets, combined with measures that meaningfully deal with or compensate those who lose from transitioning to a low-carbon future.
3. Explicitly including CCS in national climate action plans or similar flagship policy statements, which either implicitly or explicitly acknowledge how CCS can play a role alongside other low-carbon technologies.
4. Securing policy certainty via a government commitment that has been demonstrated to extend beyond political cycles and to be resilient to conflicting political demands.
5. Establishing (region-relevant) public/private business models that better manage risk allocation between the capture, transport and storage elements of the CCS chain, thus reducing overall risks.
6. Devoting special attention to accelerating investment in storage exploration and characterization, in view of the long lead times for development in certain regions.

Drivers for Carbon Capture and Utilization Market:

There are two main drivers for CCU: Reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere and expanding the regional resource basis.

1. The capability of CCU to replace fossil resources and thus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The direct greenhouse gas impact is realized directly through delayed CO2 emissions.

2. CCU has the potential to expand the regional resource basis and secure energy supply. With high shares of variable low-carbon electricity, such as solar and wind power, CCU could enable the introduction of additional low-carbon energy into the system and potentially bring additional flexibility to systems.

Carbon Capture and Utilization Market:

Source: European Commission

According to the European Commission, carbon capture and utilization market was estimated globally 2.79 billion USD which was segmented into regions. North America consists of the largest market of carbon capture and utilization which was estimated to 33% of the global market total of 0.92 billion USD and the Asia Pacific consists smallest market of carbon capture and utilization which was estimated to15% of the global market total of 0.43 billion USD in 2017.

Final Remarks:

Carbon capture and utilization is a tool which is helpful in reducing greenhouse gas emission from the various industry by capturing and utilizing the emitted Carbon Dioxide from the various operation of industries such as energy generation, manufacturing process, and recycling of waste or used product. Captured Carbon Dioxide is utilized in products of various materials such as fuel, polymers, carbonated drinks, fertilizers, chemicals and so on in a sustainable manner.

Carbon capture and utilization is helpful for the environment and prevent atmospheric changes thus regulating authority are coming with rules and regulation to promote it.it also has potential to replace fossil fuel and provide secure energy supply thus companies are also focused on adapting the latest technologies related to carbon capture and utilization. According to the European Commission in 2017 global market of carbon capture and utilization was estimated to USD 2.79 billion.

Rapid development can be achieved in industry sectors where CO2 is already separated as part of the production processes.

Carbon capture and utilization market can increase rapidly as available technology and easily accessible raw material along with political and social support.