SME tailor-designed patent portfolio analysis

The management of patents is acknowledged to be closely correlated to a company’s profits. Thus, evaluation of patent portfolios is an essential task for companies producing or depending on technology-related products. While global players and consultants already have considerable experience in this field, no tool has so far been available that meets SME requirements. The Innovation and Patent-Centre at the Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg, a German think tank for patent management, has now developed a tool specially suited for SMEs. The article describes the methodology of the tool and compares it to other state-of-the-art tools. The tool gives an easy-to-understand overview for personnel with different professional backgrounds and facilitates strategic cross-functional discussions. Field tests carried out with SMEs in different industry sectors and with varying patent portfolio sizes and structures have shown good results.     

黑龙江省生物医药产业专利战略研究

生物制药业因其高投入、高风险、高回报的产业特点,对技术的依赖性很强,发达国家的生物制药业因大量的技术支持和成熟的专利战略的运用取得了巨大成功。黑龙江省生物制药业应以国家和企业的专利战略为重点,以行业专利战略为主线,建立知识产权联盟,切实实施好保护模仿创新、建立技术标准、利用国际公约等战略战术,促进该行业的长发展。     

The Patent Asset Index – A new approach to benchmark patent portfolios

Patent metrics are increasingly used to assess the competitive position of technology-oriented firms. Patent rankings and patent scoreboards are popular methods to benchmark patent portfolios of firms against each other. Existing rankings, however, have methodological limitations that significantly reduce the meaningfulness of these benchmarks for managers, investors and other stakeholders. In this paper, we develop a new benchmarking methodology that overcomes limitations of existing approaches and offers a more accurate assessment of a firm’s patent portfolio vis-à-vis its competitors. Firms are ranked according to the Patent Asset Index, which is derived from a set of newly developed patent indicators. These indicators are empirically validated and reflect more accurately the value of patents. We apply the new benchmarking method in the global chemical industry and contrast our findings with those of other existing patent portfolio rankings.     

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.     

The relationship between patent age and selling price across bundling strategies for United States patents,predominately for computer and communication technology

The age at which a patent yields maximum price remains under explored. This paper attempts to demystify the patent age-price relationship using 510 US patents sold in US auctions. Results show computer and communication singletons sold during second half of their life (∼after10 years 2 months) exhibit significantly higher price than those sold before. No such relationship came significant for the portfolios sold. Further, age-price relationships are analysed with different bundling strategies composed of different patent family types and others, and technology fields as controls. The paper concludes with discussing the managerial implications.     

Composite value index of patent indicators: Factor analysis combining bibliographic and survey datasets

The article relates to a patent value composite index that combines twenty different patent indicators according to several dimensions: patent breadth and technology potential, prior art and background of the invention, and filing and procedural aspects of a patent. A novel selection approach of patent indicators and their validation with market value of patents is advanced, whereas the computation of the composite value index is based on the factor analysis methodology firstly proposed in the literature by Lanjouw and Schankerman (2004).This study reports several new findings. Firstly, three common factors are obtained in correspondence to the respective three dimensions of the patent indicators. Secondly, the proposed composite value index can effectively summarize the information conveyed by every single indicator, because the reduction of the goodness-of-fit of the market value model is very limited as compared to the case of the indicators taken separately. Thirdly, a robustness analysis of the composite value index was conducted, relying on post-grant information, such as opposition and renewal decisions, and the results are consistent with the market value model with the composite value index solely considered. More generally, these findings contribute to the research agenda on proposing novel timely indicators of innovation activities.     

三星集团冰箱领域在华专利布局分析

作为最早进入中国冰箱市场的外资公司之一,三星集团长年致力于高端冰箱的研发和生产、并逐步形成自有品牌的核心技术发展特点,其在华冰箱领域的专利布局便很好的反应了该公司在中国冰箱市场的研发策略和市场定位。通过对三星集团在华冰箱领域的专利申请进行统计,围绕其在华冰箱领域专利申请的总体情况、专利法律状态和IPC类别分布情况展开具体分析,旨在给出该集团对于冰箱领域在华发展趋势和方向的参考。     

A new patent processing suite for academic and research purposes

Patent databases are a counterpart of a technical encyclopedia providing a valuable informational source from patent documents. Patents apply to a wide variety of uses, and this is expanding. The increasing kinds of users of patent documents result in a lack of educational programs regarding this matter. This paper describes Patent2Net (P2N) a patentinformatic suite whose purpose is to fill the lack in the academic world (education and research) of a tool to use with students (STEM, Masters, PhD), by valuation services and for defining corpuses for research in general patent analysis, specifically on textual content. P2N is a free open-source modular, scalable, customizable and derivable tool, written in the python language. We present here the main functions of the tool and the technical aspects after discussing the skills to be reached by students for state of the art patent analysis.     

The persistence of worthless patents?

The U.S. patent system requires owners to pay renewal fees at the four, eight, and twelve-year points of the patent's life of twenty years. Previous studies of renewal rates for patents granted over 1981–1991 and 2001–2004 show only around half of the patents were renewed by the twelfth year—leading some scholars to refer to this majority of patents as ‘worthless’. Much has changed in the world since patent renewal fees began in 1981, however. This paper investigates whether patent renewal rates changed correspondingly. Among those changes, the sheer volume of patents increased substantially, creating a challenge for collating patent data. A web scraper was coded to collect renewal rate data on 2.5 million utility patents issued from 1992 to 2009—the most recent patents for which twelve-year renewal rates are available. We find, somewhat surprisingly, that patent renewal rates are virtually unchanged from several years ago. We present and discuss related data, and present the underlying computer code that patent researchers may find useful for investigating a wide range of topics in the future.     

Selecting portfolios for composite indexes: application of Modern Portfolio Theory to competitiveness

This work presents an application of the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to weight and select indicators for a composite index. MPT is based on the assumption that most of the choices of different states of a given system involve the trade-off between risk and return. In finance, MPT considers that given a set of possible choices for investments, some decision makers may prefer fewer risks while others are willing to accept a higher risk investment. MPT provides the risks and expected returns involved in a given weighted choice and at the same time the level of benefits achieved by this decision. The use of this theory allows constructing an efficient frontier, an optimal set of indicators (portfolio), such that the weighted composite indicator is optimized for a given level of risk, volatility or uncertainty. A discussion on the choice of the best portfolios, i.e., the best-expected level of returns for a given level of risk is presented. The present work proposes to apply MPT to calculate the composite competitiveness indicators of the group of five countries denominated as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The input indicators are obtained from the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) dataset. As an example of the possible applications of MPT to weight composite indicators, a detailed calculation is presented for the case of Brazil. A discussion on the competitiveness of these five countries is given based on the same approach. The study has implications since it provides the composition of portfolios that allows using the principles of MPT as a strategy to handle resource allocation problems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in which the Modern Portfolio Theory is used to analyze composite indexes and in particular performance of countries. This approach allows decision makers to establish policies and strategies to allocate resources through weighting indicators in a composite index, knowing the risks and returns involved in a given choice.     

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.     

Fuzzy-based sustainable manufacturing assessment model for SMEs

Now-a-days, in the manufacturing, sustainability has become a necessity partly due to the threats created by traditional manufacturing practices, and due to regulations imposed by stakeholders. Sustainable manufacturing implies the creation of products that utilize minimum resources, has minimum negative impacts on environment and are safe for society at large at an affordable cost. This study proposes a fuzzy inference system-based model for the evaluation of manufacturing sustainability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In order to assess the manufacturing SMEs, decision makers’ opinion of the importance of sustainability measures and indicators and also the performance of enterprise with respect to indicators are gathered using linguistic variables. An illustrative list of sustainability indicators for manufacturing SMEs is identified considering the characteristics of SMEs. The implementation of our model for a manufacturing SME identified weak areas of performance which require appropriate strategy to enhance the overall sustainability. Based on the output of this assessment model and further deliberations with decision makers, case company is in process of selecting an appropriate strategy to reduce the environmental impacts. This model serves as a tool to assists the decision makers in assessing various dimensions of sustainability within their manufacturing SMEs.     

Deciphering innovation: An exploration of USPTO patents granted to Iranian inventors

Since nearly a decade ago, Iranian policy circles have declared innovation and development of science-based industries as a priority area. This paper utilizes the emerging Iranian patent stock in the USPTO to ascertain progress on this front. Results indicate that there are policy traces in the emerging patent portfolio as proxied by sponsorship statements in 28% of all patents. However, there is little evidence of technological specialization. Breaking down the portfolio into foreign-assigned, Iranian-assigned, unassigned and Iranian-sponsored patents, indicates that foreign-assigned, followed by Iranian-assigned patents are of higher quality and potential value. Nearly half of the patents are unassigned and 40% are assigned to foreign entities. Lack of ownership assignment can be a hurdle to effective exploitation, defense and maintenance of patents. The analysis is concluded by relevant policy lessons.     

Research on petroleum patent valuation based on Value Capture Theory

The valuation of patent technology is a research hotspot in the area of intellectual property. How to objectively value a patent is still a thorny issue, especially in industries with long industry chains like the petroleum industry. This paper combines with the technical characteristics of the petroleum industry, builds up a set of patent value evaluation systems including the index system, the calculation of indicator weights, the determination of scoring criteria, and the expert score calculation innovatively. The model constructed based on the Value Capture Theory effectively combines the cost method and the benefit method in traditional assessment methods, avoiding the problem of obtaining the patent transaction data that market method required. The calculating process which adopts triangle fuzzy matrix increases the objectivity of the evaluation process. Different criteria for eight different fields of petroleum are applied in this paper, which make each specific patent evaluation model suitable for the petroleum industry. In addition, the process of evaluation becomes relatively simple and easy to implement.     

A relationship between technology indicators and stock market performance

One of the main objectives of technology analyses is to understand how investing intechnological innovation can have commercial benefits. However, empirical studies of therelationship between investments in technology and subsequent economic performance arerelatively scarce. This paper provides such an analysis by demonstrating how quantitative R&Dand technology indicators may be used to forecast company stock price performance. The purposeof the analysis is to utilize a unique patent database, and the science and technology indicatorsdeveloped from the data therein, to explore this issue of technological competence and economicperformance.The underlying concept behind this study is that the quality of a company's technology isreflected in its patent portfolio. Previous research has shown that a company with a largepercentage of influential patents is much more likely to be technologically successful than acompany with weaker patents. The analysis presented here reveals that such a company is alsomore likely to be successful in capital markets.     

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.     

Electric vehicle technology in China: An exploratory patent analysis

Currently, the electric vehicle (EV) technology is of great interest in China and around the world. This paper first conducts a comprehensive review of China's EV policies and the development of China's EV technology, and then analyzes the domestic performances of China's EV technology and its international competitiveness by adopting the recently developed concept of transnational patents. The results show an outstanding performance for China's EV technology in the domestic market, but a relatively poor performance in the international markets. Finally, several main factors causing the inconsistent performance of China's EV technology are proposed and discussed.     

两阶段专利竞赛中企业的R&D投资策略研究

在企业为获取专利权而展开的专利竞赛中,企业的策略至关重要,参赛企业必须根据其在竞赛中的相对位置不断调整R&D投资策略．本文提出了两阶段专利竞赛模型,并应用该模型对专利竞赛中企业的R&D投资策略进行了分析．     

Precision viticulture: The state of the art

The growth and collection of grapes or Viticulture is essential for producing various consumer products. Herein, we identified patents registered in the viticulture and wine areas, extracted specific information such as the applicant, country of origin and patent classification and analyzed the collected data. The filing frequencies and maps according to country and applicant were generated. Our analysis revealed two large patent groups and demonstrated that China is the top patent-producing country, rapidly acquiring substantial viticulture-related intellectual property. This study provides insights into the state of the art in viticulture and could be also be used to evaluate other business sectors.     

Patent data mining in fisheries sector: An analysis using Questel-Orbit and Espacenet

The advent of an enormous amount of patent data in various patent databases and patinformatics tools to analyze this data have led to an easy access to information for studying the technological trends and R&D activities in a sector. The fisheries sector is driven by the demand and profit generated and there are some unforeseen trends exhibited at different phases of development in specialized areas related to fisheries. In this study we have retrieved patent data of seven technology domains in fisheries, such as Fish, Fish Culture (FC), Fishing Technology (FT), Fish Processing and Products (FPP), Fish Health and Nutrition (FHN), Fish Genetics (FG) and Fish Rearing (FR) during 2000–2015. The legal status of patents, top priority countries and top assignees in different fields of the fisheries sector were analyzed. The results were compared with various developmental trends, indicating a clear relation to industrial ups and downs, the emergence of more patent portfolios in countries coping with latest technology trends and the improper litigation of legal status of the patents filed in the fisheries sector. Patent analysis in a specialized sector could be used as a potential tool in global policy debates, where fish as a natural resource is over-exploited without realizing its real potential.