Significance of Technology Landscape Analysis

 Technology Landscaping identifies and evaluates related technologies' present and potential status as they evolve in different industries.

The technology landscapes and maps help understand the rationale behind the success of one company over its competitors.

It is a valuable tool to help companies make important decisions about innovation processes and appropriate resource allocation.

It is helpful if a company utilizes a technological landscape when, for example, it needs to improve upon its efficiency or is looking for fresh ideas for innovation, processes, or technologies currently applied in other sectors.

Key Benefits of Technology Landscape Research

1.   Technology and innovation trends: It empowers companies to be aware of the latest innovations and technological developments.

2.   Shifts in technology:  Indicates if the industry is shifting from traditional technology to new or disruptive technology.

3.   Penetration of new technologies in the domain: To understand how readily competitors are adopting the latest technologies in the market.

4.   Cross-industry innovations: It helps to study technologies used by adjacent industries.

5.   Futuristic areas ripe for research: The study indicates the key technological domains or regions where companies work.

6.   Correlation of technology with issues that it solves: Analyzes the challenges of traditional technologies and how new ones are solving those.

7.   Competitive technology analysis and benchmarking: It helps to prepare a list of key players, their strengths, products, technology, and other details.

8.   Filing Trends, Innovation Hotspots, and Geographical Distribution: Technology landscape defines the filing year, hotspots, and geographical distribution.

Ingenious e-Brain provides the best technology landscape research services to recognize all the future and existing technologies in the industry. Contact us now.

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.

 

How To Conduct A Markush Chemical Structure Search?

Chemical structure search is an essential aspect in chemical research and the pharmaceutical industry for performing elaborate, efficient, and exact searches. Chemical structure search allows the searchers to filter out relevant patents with precision. Chemical search requires an exact search or spatial arrangement of the alkyl group as this information is vital to determine biological effects.

In pharmaceutical and chemical industry domains, conducting structure searches requires a distinct skill in the know-how of Markush structures and their interpretation thereof, particularly chemical compounds whose IUPAC names/CAS numbers/common names are not disclosed. Most of the patents, especially compound-focused, are typically drafted in Markush language. Therefore, for a disclosed structure, basic scaffold, variation in functional moieties in Markush structures becomes pivotal for a researcher to develop a structure search strategy to retrieve the most relevant patents and scientific publications.

It becomes important for a pharmaceutical company to boost its R&D efforts, handle patent litigation, monitor competition, and strengthen its intellectual property rights.

How to perform an efficient chemical patent search?

1. A detailed review of the structure disclosed — Investigating the disclosed structure to identify the common scaffold and other R groups defined generically or specifically.
2. Drawing query structure — Preparing an appropriate query structure around the common scaffold identified and G group definition to capture the R groups or other variables/attributes. A researcher should pay due attention in defining:
• Class Atom Match Level
• Limited Unlimited Count
• Point of Attachment etc.
3. Conducting searches — Performing Markush structure search using the query structure on Registry, Marat, and DWPI files via STN. Following types of searches are conducted based on specific requirements.

• Substructure (SSS) — It allows the query to retrieve Markush structures that match it exactly and those that have substitution at any available positions.
• Closed substructure (CSS) — Blocks all positions in the query from further substitution unless otherwise specified. CSS is much more restrictive than SSS.

Note: A sample structure search is performed, and few hit structures are evaluated to ascertain the prepared query structure’s accuracy and do the modification if required.

4. Analysis and interpretation of results — Analysis of results considering the following:

a. A structural elucidation given common scaffold/variables/attributes

b. Identify hit structure in case the structure is too generic, e.g., R-A-B-C-D-E-R1

c. Applying genus — species concept during interpretation

5. Presentation of results — Research presents results as follows depending upon the level of analysis required.

• Quick — A list of relevant references is provided without any structural/variable/attributes mapping around the common scaffold structure.
• Moderate — For the identified relevant references, the definition of R-groups, variables/attributes are provided to elucidate the chemical structure of interest.
• Extensive — Actual structures that map to the structure of interest are prepared in view of disclosed Markush structures in the identified relevant references.

Ingenious e-Brain Solutions provides comprehensive and time-bound chemical structure search services in the pharmaceutical space across various IP projects (patentability search, FTO, invalidation/opposition search, and landscape studies).

Why Is It Essential To Conduct A Valuation Of Your IP Assets?

Value from an IP asset is obtained through direct exploitation when a sale and licensing of the IP or by not exploiting an IP asset (i.e., by merely owning it), for instance, by reducing the negotiating power of customers, offsetting supplier power, mitigating rivalry, raising barriers to entry by competitors, minimizing the threat of substitutes, etc.

What are the factors that influence IP Valuation?

1. Standard of value

The most often used standards of value are Fair market value and Fair Price Value. It is essential when undertaking an IP valuation exercise. Fair market value (Market value) can be described as the price at which an asset or service passes from an interested seller to a buyer. It is presumed that both buyer and seller are rational and have a reasonable knowledge of relevant facts. Fair value (Fair price) is seen as suitable for use in post-transaction purchase price allotment. It is established on the belief that market candidates would use when pricing the asset. However, fair market value seems to be more relevant when utilizing the premise of value in exchange, and fair value is often based on the premise of value in use. As mentioned earlier, IP valuation is a process to evaluate the fair market value of an IP asset.

2. Purpose of valuation

To determine the premise for the calculation of value, it is necessary to understand the purpose of valuation. For example, valuation from the perspective of market value and investment would be completely different. In commercial situations, market value is the suitable premise. International Value Standards describe market value as “The estimated amount which a property should exchange on the day of valuation between an interested buyer and a seller in an arms-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties had each proceeded knowledgeably, prudently, and without compulsion.”

3. Valuation method(s)

The methodology applied and assumptions made while applying a particular patent valuation method affect IP assets' value. A market method is the most helpful form of valuation. The cost method is usually refrained by companies since it ignores the novel characteristic of IP. This method is effective for R&D costs.

4. Nature and strength of IP asset

The competitive strength of an IP asset governs the comparative valuation that it shall hold in the market. The aspects such as customer responsiveness and market circulation of a product or availing service determine its IP value. The threat of new entrants and substitutes influences the value of IP assets.

Reasons to conduct a valuation of your IP assets

1. Sale, licensing, or exchanging of Patents
2. Directing funds towards R & D
3. Transfer Pricing
4. Valuation in case of infringement
5. Valuation for collateral with the bank or raise funds for venture capitalists
6. Companies’ financial status

If you need patent valuation services to ascertain the fair value of your patent, Please let us know.

6 Tactics To Improve Your Technology Scouting

 

Technology scouting’s main goal is to help small and medium-sized businesses identify emerging innovations, channel tech-related data into the organization, and promote inexperienced technology in a corporate setting. At Ingenious e-Brain, we combine our knowledge, analysis, and tried-and-true processes to map out the innovations that will influence your business. We carry out technology scouting service in the following steps:

1. Identification of Emerging technology: Our technology experts, who have a good understanding of prevalent technologies and products in the domain, identify new technology opportunities that the company has not tapped into.

2. Gathering Information from information sources: The scouts choose the sources of knowledge and the tools to use. Formal and informal sources of information may be distinguished. Informal sources are beneficial for detecting discontinuities and high-level areas of technical change. Formal sources have the advantage of allowing automated knowledge searches, such as database searches using predefined algorithms. These sources are generally paid or open-source databases. The information is gathered through journals, technology reports, studies, and other databases such as Orbit Questel, Derwent Innovations, seminars, and conferences.

3. Data collection: Data is gathered and often saved for later study. Expert scouts gather more data and pick more important information using their technical skills and understanding of the company’s needs by utilizing a broader network.

4.Data Analysis: Filtration, analysis, and interpretation of collected data are carried out. It is believed that the best analysis takes place in the combined team of scouts and those receiving the information.

5.Technology Mapping: In this step, scout maps identified technologies to the client’s need or requirement on how and where clients can utilize identified solutions or technologies for streamlining their processes and earn more profits.

6.Technologies from Adjacent Industries: Finally, a team of experts finds out technologies available from adjacent industries or domains that could be utilized for better outcomes of the process by the client company.

Qualitative or Quantitative Research - Which is better?

 Those who undertake a research project often find they are unknown to the differences between Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research methods. Many inappropriately think the two terms can be used interchangeably.

So what is the dissimilarity between Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research?

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is expressed in words. It is used to recognize concepts, thoughts, or experiences. This type of research helps you to gather in-depth insights on topics that are not well acknowledged. Common qualitative methods incorporate interviews with open-ended questions, considerations described in words, and literature reviews that explore concepts and theories.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is demonstrated in numbers and graphs. It is used to test or validate theories and assumptions. This kind of research can be used to create generalizable facts about a topic. Common quantitative methods incorporate experiments, observations recorded as numbers, and surveys with closed-ended questions.

When to use qualitative vs. quantitative research

A rule of thumb for determining whether to use qualitative or quantitative data is:

• Use quantitative research if you would like to confirm or test something (a theory or hypothesis)
• Use qualitative research if you would like to understand something (concepts, thoughts, experiences)

For most research topics, you can select a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approach. Which type you should choose depends on other things, either you’re taking an inductive vs. deductive research approach; your research question(s); whether you’re doing experimental, correlational, or descriptive research; and practical considerations such as money, time, availability of data, and access to respondents.

In case you would require any help from experts for market research services, contact us.

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.