Leveraging patent landscape analysis and IP competitive intelligence for competitive advantage

Patent landscape and the accompanying IP competitive intelligence involves understanding and anticipating the competitive environment within which a company operates. More specifically, IP competitive intelligence highlights emerging IP risks, provides patent portfolio benchmarking, monitors competitor technology development efforts, and predicts commercialization of technology.This paper provides a framework for patent landscape and IP competitive intelligence as driven by strategic intent. This paper advocates the benefits of both “quantitative” statistical analysis and “qualitative” human intelligence for IP competitive intelligence. Moreover, this paper defines four Levels of IP analysis with pruned examples for effective competitive intelligence.     

面向创新的专利规避设计研究

目的研究针对现有专利高效快速地进行规避设计,去实现产品创新设计。方法通过了解我国专利的现状,结合专利规避设计策略,对专利规避设计的具体方法进行分析归纳。深入分析了基于单个专利的功能裁剪方法,基于核心专利群的规避设计,以及针对全方位专利壁垒的专利组合设计,同时对其他相关专利规避设计方法进行了总结。结论专利规避是避开其他竞争对手的专利权利要求而进行创新设计的一种积极可行的专利策略,具有较强的实践应用价值。随着专利规避技术的日趋成熟,对于专利群的规避和专利组合设计的研究会越发受到重视,将TRIZ理论与其他创新设计方法相结合,也将进一步促进专利规避设计的发展。     

Patent portfolios of European wind industry: New insights using citation categories

This study explores the use of citation categories assigned by patent examiners to study overlap of patent portfolios among top wind power firms. Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is used to obtain a sample of wind industry patents. CPC is shown to be better than the International Patent Classification for identifying patents relevant to the wind power industry. Results show high inter-firm citation among the top wind industry players that can suggest concentration of innovation. The results can be useful for patent analysts, technology managers and policy makers.     

Impact of the new Spanish patent Act in patent information

The new Spanish Patent Act ("Law 24/2015, of July 24, on Patents") was passed by the Spanish Parliament in July 2015, but did not enter into force until 1st. April 2017. Among other important changes in comparison with the previous 1986 Act, the new regulation stablishes a single granting procedure with substantive examination for every patent application. Regarding patent information, some new document kind codes have been created in order to cope with the additional procedures provided for in the new Act. On the other hand, as a consequence of the implementation of substantive examination, the new Act seems to have fostered the use of patent information services as a means to ensure in advance the novelty and inventiveness of the patent applications. This communication informs about both the new types of Spanish patent documents and the apparent surge in the use of patent information services in Spain as a consequence of the implementation of the new regulation.     

Examining the trajectory of a standard for patent classification: An institutional account of a technical cooperation between EPO and USPTO

This paper explores the dynamics of standardization practices associated with patent classification and discusses the technical, legal and policy implications of standard-setting for patent classification. Therefore, this paper aims to fill a gap in the literature on knowledge management, based on an analysis of the development and implementation of Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). This paper examines the processes of developing a standard for classifying patent applications from the perspective of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Our findings reveal that standardization in the context of patent classification is primarily shaped by the interaction involving patent offices that belong to the IP5 group. Furthermore, we found evidence that the CPC standard can be regarded as a response to the demands posed by innovative firms requiring accurate patent classification to provide secure protection for their new technologies.     

The prevalence of weak patents in the United States: A new method to identify weak patents and the implications for patent policy

The presence of patents with dubious validity (i.e., weak patents) has been one of the prominent patent policy issues with undesirable consequences in innovation. The present study empirically examines the prevalence of weak patents in the United States and whether or not the current patent system is capable of correcting weak patent issues. To this end, we propose a new method to identify weak patents by using patent citation information in conjunction with the textual similarity between citing and cited patents. Our method, along with a series of internal validation measures, shows that 13% of U.S. patents filed from 2001 to 2010 are weak patents. By applying this new method, we find that patent owners build a patent portfolio around a weak patent by developing subsequent inventions more than they do for a non-weak patent. Our further analysis finds that a weak patent is more or equally likely to be retained by the patent owner than a non-weak patent. Our findings suggest that patent owners have an incentive to invest in maintaining and appropriating weak patents, and thus, the current patent system is incapable of self-correcting weak patent issues.     

Searching the Patent Space

The Patent Space is a model to explain different kinds of patent searches in an illustrative and comprehensible way to laymen in the field of patents and patent searches, e.g. to customers like R + D staff or members of the Board. The most important kinds of patent searches are shown as examples of the applications of the ‘Patent Space’ concept.     

Measuring patent quality: A claim and search report approach

This paper presents a new prospective metric for assessing the novelty and inventiveness of patents. It does this by using initial patent search reports and examiner's intuition about the impact of adverse citations on patent claim survival. The paper then demonstrates the metric by evaluating the quality of Switzerland's national patent stock using a selection model, finding that between 84 and 90% of the country's national patents would likely not survive examination at the European Patent Office. In doing so, it contributes to the larger literature on patent assessment, underscores the relevance of patent strategy in the observed characteristics of patents, and removes some of the ambiguity in the academic literature about backward citations.     

Patent analyses in the changed legal regime of the US Patent Law since 2001

In 2001, a new ruling for the publication of patent applications at the United States Patent and Trademark Office came into effect. Since then, all applications which are also filed with foreign offices have to be published 18 months after the application date, in analogy to the ruling in Europe and Japan. This new regime replaces the former system where only granted patents were published. With about 70% of all applications the share of pre-grant publications of applications of US origin is quite high, allowing new types of statistical analysis. In particular, the investigations of time series based on priority years instead of grant years can thus be performed much more topically. On the one hand, a larger dataset for applications of US origin is available; on the other hand, the sample of applications from Asian countries is generally much larger at the US Patent Office than at the European Patent Office. Despite these new opportunities, searches at low levels of aggregation by codes of the International Patent Classification still have to be handled with care.     

The Canadian Patent Examiner Continuous Training Program

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is the Government of Canada organization responsible for granting patent rights. In 2009, the Patent Branch formalized the continuous training and professional development of patent examiners by creating the Patent Examiner Continuous Training Program. This paper presents an overview of the program: factors that influence training needs, categories of training offered, training providers, training medium used and also examples of recent training activities. CIPO's experience may be useful for other intellectual property offices developing a training program for their examiners.     

Patent data as indicators of wind power technology development

This paper reports a study into the use of patent application numbers as indicators of technological development in the field of wind power technology. We show that patent information can be used to analyse the evolution and the level of maturity of this particular technology. The data is gained from databases available at the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV). Three different segments of wind power technology; rotor form, regulation and pitch adjusting, are distinguished and maturity in respective parts is compared to the general technological progress.     

Patent information from the Polish Patent Office

The Polish Patent Office activity within the scope of its patent information policy—with emphasis on the changes since the 1990s—is described. In addition to aspects of patent searching, such as documentation and databases, dissemination activities, for example education and training, and the role of Patent Information Centres, is covered. New challenges associated with the promotion of intellectual property protection and its role for the economy are also highlighted.     

Legal Validity Metrics for Patent Offices and Law Firms – Recycling of Patent Court Appeal Decisions for Quality Management

In all relevant patent systems an adversely affected party has the possibility to appeal the patent office's decision in front of a patent court or Board of Appeal (BoA). Within a European context, the EPO is, in a way, even engaging in de facto competition with national patent offices. As an example, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) provides quasi identical patent products and offers the same kind of legal recourse to the German patent court (BPatGer) for these products. Both offices offer an opposition procedure which is open for appeal, and also in the case of a refusal, both offices offer the possibility of appeals. Thus, the EPO Boards of Appeal are engaged in making decisions every year on around 2000 cases and, e.g., the BPatGer on 600 cases regarding the legal validity of the first instance's work. It is thus remarkable that, so far, nobody has systematically included the work of the patent courts in a statistical legal validity evaluation in the context of the Patent & Trademark Offices' (PTOs') quality assurance systems.Since there is obviously a need to establish a common standard for the comparison of first and second instance legal teachings in patent law, a methodology for comparative legal validity analysis is proposed in this paper. I have tested and optimised the approach while working as a project manager at the European Patent Office, based on analysis of 2300 appeal decisions from seven annual batches.     

Determinants of patent infringement awards in the US,Japan, and China: A comparative analysis

Patent litigations are essential measures to maximize returns from research and development. Although major countries have promoted pro-patent policies, there are significant differences in patent infringement awards among jurisdictions. This article comparatively analyzes determinants of patent infringement awards in the US, Japan, and China using 880 court decisions between 2000 and 2014. We find that Japan's judges attach more weight to a litigated patent's technological importance, whereas judges in the US and China prioritize its private economic value. Besides, damages ruled by US juries are almost unpredictable, while judges provide the most predictable decisions. We also find that the jury system can explain both the variation in the US patent infringement awards and the difference with awards in Japan, but the treble damage system can only explain the former. These results provide novel empirical evidence for public policy debates on patent protection and practical insights for intellectual property professionals.     

European patent opposition outcomes in biotechnology

Oppositions to patent grants are a means to attack competitors and protect a firm's own patent portfolio. Extant literature has analyzed the determinants of oppositions, while the drivers of opposition outcomes are less known. We study 290 EPO biotech patent oppositions filed in 2012–2019. There are three possible outcomes of opposition proceedings: patent revocation, patent amendment, and opposition rejection. We find that opponents who know the patent's technology are more likely to obtain a patent revocation, while opponents who compete in the product market with the patent owner are more likely to receive a rejection.     

Patents as potential indicators of the utility of EC research programmes

In the framework of the MONITOR-SPEAR programme of the Commission of the European Communities a critical review of the literature with regard to the utility of patent indicators being in use for evaluation world-wide has been undertaken. Availability, scope and complementarity of these indicators are discussed. A practical tool to use patent indicators for evaluation committees of EC programmes is designed and recommendations for EC procedures are given.The suggested procedures will be implemented alongside three sample exercises. One of the exercise programmes is science-led (BEP and BAP), one industry-led (BRITE I) and one interphase (MHR). In this paper only selected examples with respect to the MHR programme are outlined and discussed.The project is not completed yet and only preliminary findings will be given in this paper. From the viewpoint of its present state it is concluded that patent indicators may play a very useful role within a mixed set of evaluation procedures. The intersection with other methods is not very large, that is, patent indicators may provide supplementary information to a large extent. However, their use is limited to those types of programmes which are relevant for intellectual property rights mostly in the commercial realm. Patent indicators share with other evaluation tools the problem of best adjustment of time windows between observation and execution of the programme. Despite of these limitations, patent indicators may be employed properly as output indicators related to ongoing EC programmes, but as well for propective analysis of applied fields of R & D and may thus help in the definition phase of new R & D programmes.This work has been sponsored by the MONITOR programme of the Commission of the European Communities.     

Novel mixed-encoding for forecasting patent grant duration

In an age when data is regarded as the most essential commodity, organizations are racing to use it for better decision making. The quality of the patent portfolio is an important indicator of technological innovation in an organization and its analysis can reveal several indicators linked to the growth of a company. The advancement of machine learning along with the access to large amounts of patent data has led to a paradigm shift from traditional patent data analysis methodologies to novel approaches. A lot of research has been done in this direction for analysing data on patent citations, patent text, IPC class etc. However, much less has been explored regarding the forecast of patent grant duration and its significance for decision making with an even lower focus on data collected from developing countries. This work is built upon our existing study on patent grant duration prediction by devising a novel methodology of encoding the data using a combination of augmented one-hot encoding and label-encoding. Thereafter, methodologies such as Outlier Detection have been applied to this data to yield an improved result vis-à-vis our baseline results. In addition, we identify some of the important factors which impact the decision on grant duration of patent applications using the raw data from the Indian Patent Office.     

Foreign applications at the Japan Patent Office - An empirical analysis of selected growth factors

This article aims to evaluate some of the possible factors which could have had a significant role in the increase in the yearly number of foreign patent applications at the Japan Patent Office. The analysed period ranges from 1991 to 2005. In the years considered, foreign applications increased constantly while the number of domestic filings remained almost the same or even decreased. The increase is more striking when compared to analogous figures of the US Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office, where the corresponding ratio did not change too much in the same period. Building on previous literature, this paper analyses the impact of some macroeconomic and structural characteristics of the extending countries, on one side, and, on the other side, some features specific to the receiving country and its Patent Office (here Japan and the JPO). This work tries to capture the relevance of such drivers in the increased amount of foreign patent applications at the JPO.     

Impacts of patent information on clustering in Derwent Innovation's ThemeScape map

ThemeScape Map (Clarivate Analytics, n.d.) is a data analytics tool provided by Derwent Innovation. It is used by patent researchers and R&D experts to generate quick patent intelligence (HG Insights, 2020). It is a general practice that users plot the map by using the default settings recommended by Derwent Innovation, but this default setting may not yield the most optimized results as desired. In this paper, the author contributes to the empirical study on the impacts of the combination of the different types of patent information to be used in ThemeScape Map when clustering patent data. As a result, this paper recommends patent analysts to include Patent Classification and DWPI data when plotting ThemeScape Map in order to achieve more optimized results.     

Patent predictive price-to-book ratio (PB) on improving investment performance -- Evidence in China

Patent is strongly meaningful for most countries’ technology development and economy growth. China is the world largest patent application country and has the world No.2 stock market. In this research, China listed companies (A-shares) in Shanghai main board, Shenzhen main board, GE board, and SME board from 2016 to 2018 were applied to discuss the prediction ability of patent indicators to financial performance. The patent prediction equations for quantitatively predicting the price-to-book ratio (PB) by patent indicators were constructed via Granger Causality test and time series regression. The stock selection criteria based on the patent predictive PB were further discussed. The traditional value investors consider stocks with PB values under 3.0 are undervalued. It was found that most stock portfolios selected by either the lower predictive PB or the higher predictive PB growth rate had higher performance above the traditional PB investment strategy. The criteria also worked well on GE board and SME board even though these stock boards were seriously impacted to decline by the China-US trade conflict. Though the overall economic environment fluctuated, the patent prediction algorithm proposed was proved to be useful to discover good stock portfolios and improve traditional PB investment strategy