Significance of Patent Landscape Analysis

 

Patent landscape analysis is a comprehensive analysis of patents and scientific literature. An analysis is focused on the research area given by the client. A Patent landscape analysis shows the white space in the research area, IP trends to figure out the density of activity, and technology decay and rise. Patent landscaping is suitable for planning research in virtually any area of technology. Patent landscape analysis shows what areas are potentially rife with third-party patent problems for a given general field of technology. By contrast, what areas remain relatively free of third‐party patents ‐ and possibly are available for appropriation. Useful for

• Track the global activities of competitors and outline their strategies & strengths.
• Monitor R&D trends worldwide.
• Discover the latest technological advances in the area. 
• Spot potential white space in the marketplace.
• Identify new players in the technology space. 
• Identify technologies developed by various players.
• Monitor research collaborations in a technology area.
• Identify potential avenues for mergers/ acquisitions.

What are some of the steps involved with performing Patent Landscape Analysis?

The fundamental idea of patent landscape analysis, sometimes referred to as patent mapping, is to review and organize the patent activity in a technology area. Ideally, you have engaged a patent landscape team consisting of a patent analytics expert and experts from R&D, marketing, competitive intelligence, and legal that are familiar with the technology, area to be analyzed, and have time to commit to the project. Steps involved with creating a successful patent landscape analysis include:

 

1. Establish the purpose of the patent landscape analysis. Why is this patent mapping project being undertaken (i.e., idea generation, ‘white space’ analysis, design around, competitive intelligence, patent filing strategy/patentability, risk management/validity/freedom to operate, monetization, M&A, etc.)?
2. Determine which patent search and analytic software and/or third-party services will perform or assist in the project.
3. Your landscape team will agree on the boundaries of the technology area of focus. It includes considering whether to have product terms, technology alternatives, multiple application areas in the search, and to agree on the goals and outcomes of the patent landscaping project.
4. Determine which countries to include in the search, how far back in time to look, whether to have abandoned patents, family members, equivalent versions of patents, etc.
5. Perform preliminary searches across patents and technical literature and work with the team’s technical and market experts familiar with the technology area to identify a set of relevant keywords, patent class codes, and organizations working in the technical area.
6. Generate an initial training set of documents relevant to the technology area and review those documents to identify additional and refined technology, product, and application areas to categorize the patent information.
7. Use keyword, patent class code, citation mapping, and semantic search strategies. Identify lists of patents that are relevant to each technology, product, and application sub-area.
8. Review and sort the patents within each relevant technology, product, and application sub-category. It can be done through automated means (quick yet less accurate) using keyword and international class code searching. Or manually (time-consuming, yet very accurate) by reviewing Titles, Abstracts, and Claims. Manual review offers the additional benefit of adding meta-data, comments, and value rankings to each result. It will result in a more robust and valuable output. 

Our expert team consists of patent analysts who perform rigorous data mining, data visualization, and data analysis to generate a patent landscape that helps clients identify competitive and technology trends.  

Ingenious e-Brain provides intellectual property research & analytical consulting firm, including customized services in the form of Patent landscape analysis, Patent portfolio analysis, Patent searches (Prior‐art, Patentability, Invalidation, Infringement, and Freedom to Operate), Patent alert and monitoring, Trend analysis, Patent to Product mapping, and patent licensing. Our expertise lies in generating valuable IP intelligence from patent, non‐patent, product, and other technical & competitive information. We provide consistent, high-quality IP research & analytical services in electronics, telecommunications, medical devices, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, chemistry, mechanical, and many more. 

 

Why do we need business portfolio analysis?

 

Business Portfolio Analysis is an organizational strategy formulation process based on the philosophy that organizations should make strategy much as they handle investment portfolios. Portfolio analysis is a structured way to analyze the products and services of an association's business portfolio. In the way sound financial investments should be supported and unsound ones discarded, useful organizational activities should be emphasized, and unsound ones deemphasized.

 

Purpose of Portfolio Analysis: 

A viable strategy needs product-market scopes in deciding how strategic objectives will be attained. In a diversified company, one well-received concept of product-market scope is the portfolio approach to an organization's overall strategy. The optimal business portfolio fits the company's strengths perfectly and helps to utilize the most attractive industries or markets. An SBU can either be an entire mid-size company or a division of a big corporation. It typically formulates its business-level strategy and often has separate objectives from the parent company.

 

The aim of portfolio analysis is: 

1) To Analyse: Analyse its present business portfolio and determine which SBUs should receive more or less investment. 

2) To Develop Growth Strategies: Develop a growth strategies for including new products and business in the portfolio. 

3) To Take Decisions Regarding Product Retention: Decide which business or products should no longer be retained.  

 

Advantages of Portfolio Analysis: 

1) Encourages Management for Evaluation: It encourages management to analyze each of the organization's businesses individually and to set objectives and allocate resources for each. 

2) Stimulates Use of Externally Oriented Data: It stimulates externally oriented data to supplement management's intuitive judgment. 

3) Key Areas: These models highlight certain aspects of business that are considered essential to success or failure.

4) Cash Flows: They focus on cash flow requirements of the SBU's and help identify the different cash flow implications and requirements of different business activities. It helps management to carry out its resource allocation function. 

5) Balance Portfolio: They help identify strengths and weaknesses in the portfolio, the gaps to be filled, when a new SBU needs to be added, or when one needs to be removed, and the duplicative businesses in the portfolio. 

6) Diverse Perspective: A multi-business company's diverse activities are analyzed systematically, highlighting enterprise diversity. 

7) Flexible Comparisons: Some matrices are highly flexible in selecting different factors for different industries. This kind of analysis can provide coverage of a vast number of strategically relevant variables. 

 

Why do you need a patent invalidity search?

 An extensive Prior Art Search is performed after patent issuance to examine whether a patent can be proved inaccurate or invalid because the invention was unable to stand true in terms of the basic patentable requirements like novelty, non-obviousness, etc., the time of patent grant. The prior art is evidence that claims that the invention is already known. This search of finding out is referred to as the patent validity or invalidity search. The primary focus of the search is either to check the validity of its enforcement or to invalidate its claims. The search is basically performed because of these three basic reasons:

• To invalidate patent infringement.
• To search for the same patents before any new patent enforcement.
• To check whether the licensor holds an authentic claim to the patent.

An opposition member claiming the invalidity might use these invalidity search results to damage the patent by litigation or applying to the ruling court. When threatened by accusations of patent infringement, prior art-based proof of invalidity art is the initial line of defense. Eminent firms and corporations are eagerly consulting Ingenious e-Brain to discuss all these searches.

Patent Validity Prior Art Search

Before licensing, selling, or buying a patent, a prior art search must be authorized by the client or any relevant search firm to examine the validity of the idea behind the invention and verify that the patent is enforceable. Taking an idea about the background and knowledge about the market before patenting will give the inventor and its invention a powerful negotiating stance.

Patent Invalidity Search

It is an extensive all-out search attack that checks for a complete patent infringement lawsuit. Invalidating a patent may differ according to different territorial regions and national governing laws imposed in that area. The most common claims accepted by the governing laws are the publication of the invention before the priority date of the petition for a patent, sales of the invention, prior public knowledge, or prior public use. In these cases, an exhaustive prior art search will be directed at each of the separate sources of the prior art.

Prior art sources like issued patents, published patent applications, and non-patent literature is the most common sources, although the patent art reservoir is magnificent storage. Physical pictures, examples, brand names, and even sale evidence fall under prior art sources. The search approach differs from one technical subject area to another.

Patent Invalidity Search by Ingenious e-Brain

• We are performing a patent invalidity search for the last 09 years in the market.
• An out-of-box approach that demonstrates a lot more than simple database searching.
• The intensity of the search depends upon the time and budget of the client.
• Searches are done to inspect old product brochures or out-of-date products, locate dukes of resourceful organizations, investigate trade show discovery from the beginning of the history of the technology used, and for a lot more.