How Patent Landscape Help Businesses in Enhancing R&D Strategy?

 

It is a fact that each organization and industry domain has different IP policies and R&D priorities. But, all of them share an identical challenge whenever it comes to considering and capturing IP. But the real question is, at what point in time do they need to start?

Businesses consider R&D initially, and then IP as research and development activities have yielded an intangible technical solution. Identically, academics perform early searches of published papers.

However, with research and development activity mainly focused on the crowded technical fields, organizations and academics are starting to know the requirement to include IP strategy in their R&D activity. If managed well, IP can assist in boosting and focus R&D efforts and reduce the risk of investing in technological advancements, which might unnecessarily complicate existing prior art.

Patent Landscaping

Instead of searching for existing prior art for a solution in the innovation, patent landscaping can framework the existing technical field. It can quickly outline the technical fields that focus on development and white space, which might tell future R&D tactics.

The early patent landscaping is distinct from the traditional searches to evaluate patentability search as, at this stage, a technical solution might not exist. This is the case where landscaping helps during the scoping of an R&D activity.

The main key benefit is the starting recognition of existing solutions. Taking patent landscaping services earlier enables strategic decisions regarding product development. The outcome might suggest a white space prospect.

Additionally, wherever technical disclosures are originated, analysis can mark the available technical areas. The crowded landscape areas are not likely to boost wide patent rights while recognizing unoccupied fields of the technological landscape can assist in R&D efforts towards the field, which are more likely to gain huge patent protection.

When an existing solution is found, some options incorporate:

· Using existing solutions freely where there are not any active rights in countries interest.

· Licensing existing solution

· Gaining IP to strengthen business

All these strategies can save R&D expense and reduce the time of product development. This saves R&D expense which can be redirected to any other development.

Mainly patent landscape denotes all the required features of the area of land. Identically, "Patent Landscaping" is a procedure to build a pending patent overview or in the process in a specific area. In a way, the patent landscape can be defined as mapping pending, existing, and patents in the place field. There are several formats to report analysis, such as reports published.

Several Uses of Patent Landscaping Incorporate:

· Support development of an organization's IP strategy.

· The understanding of the competitive landscape in R&D areas.

· Recognizing the upcoming technologies trends within a domain.

· Supporting improved targeting of industrial and innovation policies and examining their influence.

· Recognizing the networks of knowledge and inventors among industry and countries.

Why Are Patent Landscapes Conducted?

A patent landscape is done based on a particular reason. Generally, the patent landscape is done to understand one or more of the following:

· Businesses which look forward to developing a new product in a specific field

· Help organizations to grow and create business tactics or plans

· Assists organization recognize their competitors

· Assist organizations to determine the main field

· Minimizes the risk and recognize field for future growth

Advantages of Patent Landscaping

Patent landscape analysis assists in making an informed business decision and enhances the degree of confidence. Data gathered through the patent landscape enable the business to make decisions based on informed choice and evidence and recognize future growth areas.

The most important advantage you can have from patent landscape analysis is to incorporate deep insights into the product, technology, and competition you have selected to do research. From research, you can gain a large understanding which is below mentioned:

· General advancements/Technology trends — Recognition of promising fields of technology:

· Assessment of trends in technological sectors in relevant to larger areas

· Recognition of overdeveloped fields

· Development in duration and scope of patent protection

· Connections that exist among applicants and critical investors

How does the Patent Landscape work?

The perceptions of landscape analysis unfold hot spots as per competition, players, regions, market, and prospects for the business.

The patents can be apprehended by several keywords and class-based techniques. The search techniques might further incorporate assignees, citations, and inventors of recognized patents. Search parameters can be customized according to the specific needs of clients.

While examining, apprehended patents are characterized under several standards, and this stage gives a general idea of what exists in the present. As per areas of interest, patents are further analyzed to gain data as per need taxonomy.

This data points out the details of innovation in the existing state-of-art, which assists researchers in drawing differences with their innovation. This data is mainly represented as a collective analysis of characterized patents.

Insights of Patent Landscape Analysis

The landscape analysis is mainly represented in the graphic format, which shows a timeline trend- additionally separating distinct assignees, main markets. Some other impacting factors are also recognized in the landscape:

· Main players in the technical area of interest

· New applicants in the technical area of interest and recognizing any licensing opportunity

· Location with priority filings

· Top researchers for technical areas of interest. Recognizing inventors working in main sectors. This is important as part of R&D techniques to collaborate with the best researchers

· Application area of innovation corresponding to the location

· Technology classes with main research

· Data about innovation offers opportunities for acquisitions to enhance existing innovation.

· Timeline based comparison of different innovation in a sector assist in recognizing areas which are outdated, and which are upcoming

Why Choose Ingenious for Patent Landscape?

Ingenious e-Brain has a team of highly experienced professionals who offer patent landscape analysis solutions as per the goals. The team can provide custom-based patentability searches, which are excellent to perform non-patent searches for insights.

Utilizing this elaborated data, clients can modify data and get the insights as per their objective. Additionally, we also offer a visualization dashboard that helps the client dicing data and get insightful data as needed.

A Guide To Patent Infringement Analysis

Patent infringement is using a patent for commercialization/Monetization purposes without the patent assignee permission or license. Patent infringement analysis determines the category of patent infringement, such as Literal infringement and Doctrine of equivalents.

 

• Literal infringements: It happens when the accused firm copies the product as claimed in the patent. Two main specifications of literal infringement are: The function of the accused product is similar to the original patent. It is also identical in terms of material and structure.
• The doctrine of equivalents: This includes any partial infringement. If any part of the accused product is accomplishing the same result through the same process, it covers the equivalents' doctrine. 

The steps for a patent infringement analysis are:

1. Describe the claim in a patent thoroughly.
2. Compare the claims and accused products to check for literal infringements.
3. In case of no literal infringement, examine for infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

The approach is to go into details of the claim as much as possible. In some cases, the complete drawing is similar, and any small part is claimed. The accused product can have multiple similarities with the original patent, but in case it's not violating the claim, It doesn't come under patent infringement.

Aside from literal infringement and the doctrine of equivalents, there are few more types of infringement based on the different violations.

· Direct infringement: If anyone sells, uses, or offers to sell a patent in the U.S.A without any authorization comes under direct infringement.

· Contributory infringement: Duplicating a part from a patented invention and then use or sell it comes under this infringement category.

· Process patent infringement: Importing any innovation in the U.S without the authority of the patent owner comes under process patent infringement.

· Litigation process after patent infringement analysis

Once the patent infringement analysis is done, courts have a two-step process to find out the result.

1. Claim construction 
2. The court governs whether the accused product infringes on the authentic patent.

Claim construction is the scenario when the court describes the claims made in the patent. During this process, the precise meaning of the term is considered. Although, it can be changed if the patent owner gave a different meaning to the term. Large firms focus on developing a patent claim construction to establish their position on the legal front.

The court judges the product depend on functionality. Any part in the claim is considered as a method to complete a function. It finishes the opportunity of the claim. If a meaning for a technical word is not clear, the court considers the meaning specified by experts or textbooks. In conclusion, claim construction is entirely under the court. However, parties can have a jury trial interrogate the court's interpretation of patent infringement. Moreover, there are specific ways to defend a patent infringement lawsuit.

Want to conduct a patent infringement analysis?

Ingenious e-Brain has more than 9 years of experience in the IP field. Our team covers possibly every technical domain. We go through every database to deliver accurate results. Also, the clients can examine the status of the work at any stage of the process. Most importantly, 100 % customer satisfaction is our top priority.

To know more, visit our service page: https://www.iebrain.com/services/ip-intelligence/infringement-analysis/.

How To Conduct Patent Watch Analysis?

The process to implement the patent watching service at regular intervals is the key to ensure the safety of your patents. It can be monitored from official journals, online sites, etc. Moreover, there are various reasons for firms to use patent watching/monitoring searches, such as to analyze competitors in the market, to prevent any patent infringement, etc. Also, the main aim is to gain information about market strategy, competitor's potential resources and determine the strength of services/products. Most importantly, increase in legal protection of patent reduce the chances of infringement.

Regular monitoring ensures the monopoly on inventions. It detects potential infringement related to the manufacture, sale, or import faculties in each region. Moreover, it gives insights into the domains in which competitors are focusing on research. Hence, firms that rely on innovation can respond accordingly.

Reasons To Implement Patent Watching/Monitoring Services

 

• It determines novelty or performs prior art searching: The main aim of a patent watch is to understand the novelty to lower the expenditure for performing extra R&D. Clients also clout the report references to create a better quality of draft while presenting prior art in front of the analyst at the time of prosecution at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
• To assess product clearance, right-to-use, or perform a freedom-to-operate search: It is crucial to search for potential infringement by performing a product clearance search. It helps in discovering the leading competitors for a specific domain. This helps in avoiding any potential infringement.
• Perform Validity or Invalidity search: We can conduct a complete validity search against any patent claims through our large domain experience and database coverage. We work with some of the prominent IP litigation firms in the United States, and our work has demonstrated benefits in hundreds of cases. It will allow you to monitor potential infringement risks.
• To perform a state of the art search: This can even provide you with an overview by examining published patents, applications, and non-patent literature, and which will help to understand future trends.
• It discovers competitive or technical intelligence: This can help identify new competitive insights to help you manage business plans. It allows you to identify and monitor other people's patent applications which the opposition may challenge in the future.
• To perform subject matter-specific watching service: Watch can even be explicitly performed on a technical subject. In this, the search is only carried for any new patents or patent applications in a specific domain.
• To perform search specific to proprietor/applicant name: There is also a provision to perform a patent search by a particular name. It is a better option if you want complete information about the leading competitor about his all sorts of technical improvements.
• It monitors every phase of the patent process: It is essential to watch every step of the patent application process since patent applications regularly undergo amendment throughout an examination. Therefore, a third-party patent application that emerges to be an infringement risk at the starting of the procedure may or may not remain such at the later stages. For this, monitoring is a must to know regarding the risks associated with all the stages of a patent process.

Ingenious e-Brain has more than nine years of experience in the IP field. Our team covers possibly every technical domain with eminent clients globally. We go through every database to deliver precise results. Also, the clients can check the status of the work at any stage of the process. Moreover, 100 % customer satisfaction is our top priority. To know more, visit us for Best Patent Watch/Monitoring Analysis Services.

 

The Conditional Infringement Analysis And Its Types

Infringement analysis is typically performed when a party, except patentee or licensee, is manufacturing, importing, using, selling, or offering the patented technology for sale without permission/license from the patentee, during the patent validity term and within the origin country. These aspects are considered while testing for infringement of the patent. The patent infringement analysis procedure varies from country to country. Still, in general, it requires that the infringing party’s product falls within one or more of the patent’s claims.

The process involves reading concerned technology claims; it assesses if all or some of the claim’s elements are found in the technology. Suppose a single element is missing from the technology’s claim. In that case, the claim does not relate to the technology; the technology will not infringe the patent concerning the claim, except when the equivalence doctrine is applicable. The parties resolve the dispute settlements; these involve a licensing agreement, like a cross-licensing agreement. These private settlements may not always be in the public interest.

Infringement analysis concerns analyzing infringement of technology owners’ patent rights by a prevalent product in the market.

Infringement analysis is performed under the following circumstances:

• When a patent owner wants to understand whosoever is violating the patent rights. In this case, the owner expresses interest in finding out the market’s active companies with products infringing the products. The owner may get an infringement analysis done to understand the parties wanting to license the company’s technology or suing the parties to avoid exploitation of patented invention from competitors.
• Another case is when a patent attorney concerned with patent litigation seeks to understand the infringement level. For patent litigation, parties arguing about potential infringement and associated violation damages. For this, attorneys representing both the plaintiff and the defendant get infringement analysIs done to analyze the infringement level. This analysis supports their arguments and assesses potential damages.
• Infringement analysis is also performed when a company launches a product and looks out to understand any potential infringement chances of active patents. In many cases, companies get the freedom to operate (FTO) analysis done. For assessing FTO, professionals attempt to analyze the relevant infringing patents.

According to specific jurisdictions, there are some cases of patent infringement called “indirect infringement.” An indirect breach occurs if a device is claimed for a patent and a third party deliberately supplies a product that is used reasonably for the claimed device.

The basic principle is determining if a segment of technology infringes a patent or not by analyzing the patent claim’s scope and meaning. This analysis is followed by comparing the accused product’s claim to determine the infringement’s potential extent. Understanding the breach of a patent claim requires that each claim element is present in the accused product. So, it involves deciphering the claim based on the knowledge of the concerned industry. There is no substitute for having a person possessing skills for reading the claim and examining potential infringers.

Patent infringement is generally of two types: literal infringement and infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

The term “literal infringement” means every element in a claim has identical correspondence that allegedly infringes the device or process. However, even when literal infringement is missing, a claim can be infringed under the doctrine of equivalents. It happens when some other element of the accused process performs the same function, in somewhat the same way, to achieve the same result.

1. Literal Infringement: The infringement of a claim requiring the accused device to meet every limitation of the claim, either under literal infringement or under the doctrine of equivalents. In the case of literal infringement, when a claimed element is missing, literal infringement is avoided. It can also be said that a “literal” make up of such a limitation might encompass just the disclosed structure and its related equivalents. 
2. Infringement Under the Doctrine of Equivalents: One principal concern with the patent claims’ literal language is that, even when you avoid literal infringement, one might still infringe the patents that come under the “doctrine of equivalents.” The “doctrine of equivalents” concerns judicially created doctrine having a three-part substantial identity test embodying the following steps:

a. Determine if the accused device or process achieves almost the same result as of the claimed invention. If it does not gets approve, then the infringement inquiry ends.

b. Determine if the accused device or process performs almost the same function as the claimed invention. If it does not, then the infringement inquiry ends.

c. Determine if the accused device or process operates in the same way as the concerned invention. If it does not, then the infringement inquiry ends.

In short, to find infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, the comparison is made using the ‘element-by-element.’ method and not by using the single claim for the whole analysis. This comparison is made between the claimed invention and the accused device. The three-prong test is used to determine if a “substantial equivalent” exists for a claimed element or limitation. However, even after “substantial equivalent” is found, there is still no infringement if the asserted scope of equivalency encompassed the prior art or is barred by the patent’s prosecution history.

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.

Patent Landscape Services | Ingenious e-Brain Solutions

A patent landscape is a thorough search of patents that have a place with a specific technology domain. The characterization of patents in a predefined arrange empowers clear comprehension of the area from the technical side, as well as from a business point of view. 

Landscapes are exhaustive in nature and involve:

• Developing a taxonomy considering your business objectives

• Conduct an exhaustive search on patent databases to identify patents that can be classified in a technical domain

• Understand and derive technical insights from the patents that help in informed decision making

Landscape search gives answers for a wide number of business inquiries that are identified with the territory of innovation including potential zones of research, current strengths, gaps or white spaces. We lead comprehensive pursuit and examination of the patent reports identifying with your area to outline contender's innovation, licensing, research development, and merger and securing techniques. Our report gives bits of knowledge on current trends, potential innovators, and innovation development.

For More Details @ https://www.iebrain.com/our-services/ip-intelligence/ 

About us:

We are a globally recognized research and analytics solutions provider with a team of experienced professionals from diverse technical domains. Our services, ranging from technology ideation to commercialization, are tailored to help our clients transform their business model by providing them holistic solutions around Intellectual Property, Technology, and Business Intelligence. Our clients include R&D groups, attorneys, and inventors from large law firms and Fortune 500 companies.

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