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.