Patent analysis

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Patent analysis is the process of analyzing patent documents and other information from the patent lifecycle. Patent analysis is used to obtain deeper insights into different technologies and innovation. Other terms are sometimes used as synonyms for patent analytics: patent landscaping, patent mapping, or cartography.[ citation needed ] However, there is no harmonized terminology in different languages, including in French and Spanish, while in some languages terms are borrowed from other languages (e.g. the German term “Patentlandschaften” in Russian[ citation needed ]). Patent analytics encompasses the analysis of patent data, analysis of the scientific literature, data cleaning, text mining, machine learning, geographic mapping, and data visualisation. [1]

Contents

Patent analytics is used in industry and increasingly[ as of? ] explored by the public sector to take informed decisions related to prioritization and investments in R&D, IP portfolio management, commercialization of technology, and research collaborations among others. [2] [3]

Patent analysis tools and methods have traditionally[ when? ] been done using spreadsheet-based data analysis methods. More recently,[ as of? ] the field of intellectual property has witnessed a convergence of traditional patent analytics with data science, machine learning, semantic technologies, and artificial intelligence [4] along with a surge in available tools that are being applied to patent visualization. [5] There has also been an increase in open-source software, tools [6] and datasets [7] being used for patent analytics, as well as the use of techniques, such as machine learning, for different tasks. [8] Some tools [9] propose semi-automated production of visualizations, dashboards or reports. Terabytes of patent information from many patent offices is available on-line for free from INPADOC or espacenet or Patentscope. Many developers of big data software, such as Google Patents, The Lens, Clarivate Analytics, ip.com, Derwent World Patents Index, and Questel-Orbit, use these free and other patent databases to test the capabilities of their own data analysis software.[ citation needed ]

Types of patent analysis and reports

Different types of patent analyses can be performed based on the need and the questions to be answered and each type of analysis leads to different associated reports. A patentability or prior art search report provides information on whether a new invention is eligible for patent protection, along with information on what are the closest prior arts. This analysis helps patent attorneys draft broad and appropriate claims for the new invention. The patentability search may include both patent and non-patent literature. A freedom-to-operate search report helps organizations decide if they have the clearance to launch a new product without infringing on anyone else’s patent rights. This is specific to only one jurisdiction, and multiple searches for each jurisdiction may have to be performed if an organization is interested in obtaining clearance for product launch in different countries.

Patent landscape reports

Patent landscape reports (PLRs) are another example of a report produced by performing patent analysis.

For users in industry, they are used as a decision-making mechanism (patent portfolio management, R&D investment and prioritisation, technology transfer, etc.). Such reports are typically confidential and not publicly available. They are costly and commissioned or developed to support specific decision-making processes and are considered business intelligence.

In the public sector, the providers of patent landscape reports are the national patent offices or research institutes that prepare reports on subjects of general interest, for a specific need, or to provide landscaping services to the public. Patent landscape reports are used by the public sector to raise awareness, with public institutions increasingly finding ways to facilitate and validate their policy decisions in ways that are similar to private sector decisions. [5]

Some public and private entities make patent landscape reports or patent analytics reports publicly available, including patent offices. An example of a searchable database of such reports is World Intellectual Property Organization's PATENTSCOPE database that facilitates patent landscape reports by other organizations. [10] One or several state of the art or prior art patent search reports form the basis of these patent landscape reports. Different fields of patent documents and other structured information are analyzed using statistical, analytical, and comparative methods to identify patterns, understand IP strategies and trends in technology areas in question. The results of the analysis are presented using a combination of narrative and different type of visualizations.

Patent landscape reports are sometimes confused with different products serving different purposes, such as a freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis which has a different scope and is based on an FTO search; technology bulletins, technology watches/technology alerts, or even specific type of visualizations. [11]

Patent analysis methodology

There are currently[ as of? ] very few methodological resources describing the steps and tasks involved in patent analytics. [12] Typically patent analytics teams work with R&D departments, patent attorneys, with related information feeding into IP, corporate and business strategy decisions. [5]

In general, patent analytics and patent landscape report creation involves the following stages: [5]

  1. Defining the topic and project scope,
  2. The patent search that leads to obtaining patent data,
  3. Data cleaning and normalization,
  4. Data analysis and visualization,
  5. Narrative and storytelling when drafting the report, and
  6. Dissemination and distribution of the analysis.

Patent analytics is an iterative process which often requires rescoping of the project and adaptation based on the findings during the process. There are different tools which can be used for analytics, some embedded in patent databases, others more general data manipulation, visualization and analytics tools, including commercial and open source tools. [5]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Intellectual Property Organization</span> Specialised agency of the United Nations

The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to promote and protect intellectual property (IP) across the world by cooperating with countries as well as international organizations. It began operations on 26 April 1970 when the convention entered into force. The current Director General is Singaporean Daren Tang, former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, who began his term on 1 October 2020.

Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, dashboard development, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.

Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform inventions and scientific outcomes into new products and services that benefit society. Technology transfer is closely related to knowledge transfer.

Prior art is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability. In most systems of patent law, prior art is generally defined as anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to a patent's claim before the effective filing date of a patent application for an invention. However, notable differences exist in how prior art is specifically defined under different national, regional, and international patent systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambia (non-profit organization)</span>

Cambia is an Australian-based global non-profit social enterprise focusing on open science, biology, innovation system reform and intellectual property. Its projects include The Lens, formerly known as Patent Lens, and the Biological Innovation for Open Society Initiative.

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for business and market research and assess and improve website effectiveness. Web analytics applications can also help companies measure the results of traditional print or broadcast advertising campaigns. It can be used to estimate how traffic to a website changes after launching a new advertising campaign. Web analytics provides information about the number of visitors to a website and the number of page views, or create user behavior profiles. It helps gauge traffic and popularity trends, which is useful for market research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dashboard (business)</span> Aggregate business progress report

In business computer information systems, a dashboard is a type of graphical user interface which often provides at-a-glance views of key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to a particular objective or business process. In other usage, "dashboard" is another name for "progress report" or "report" and considered a form of data visualization. In providing this overview, business owners can save time and improve their decision making by utilizing dashboards.

The completion of the human genome sequencing in the early 2000s was a turning point in genomics research. Scientists have conducted series of research into the activities of genes and the genome as a whole. The human genome contains around 3 billion base pairs nucleotide, and the huge quantity of data created necessitates the development of an accessible tool to explore and interpret this information in order to investigate the genetic basis of disease, evolution, and biological processes. The field of genomics has continued to grow, with new sequencing technologies and computational tool making it easier to study the genome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Patents</span> Search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications

Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Lens</span>

The Lens, formerly called Patent Lens, is an online patent and scholarly literature search facility, provided by Cambia, an Australia-based non-profit organization. The Lens has been hailed as the “most comprehensive scholarly literature database, that exceeds in its width and depth two leading commercial databases combined”. The Lens is an agglomeration database, that takes bibliometric data from other databases and combines them into one, deduplicated and with unified search syntax. Also, unlike the competing databases, The Lens allows data exporting in JSON format with a superior granularity compared to RIS and CSV formats.

World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) is an annual statistical report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The publication provides an overview of the activity in the areas of patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, microorganisms, plant variety protection, geographical indications and the creative economy.

Cultural analytics refers to the use of computational, visualization, and big data methods for the exploration of contemporary and historical cultures. While digital humanities research has focused on text data, cultural analytics has a particular focus on massive cultural data sets of visual material – both digitized visual artifacts and contemporary visual and interactive media. Taking on the challenge of how to best explore large collections of rich cultural content, cultural analytics researchers developed new methods and intuitive visual techniques that rely on high-resolution visualization and digital image processing. These methods are used to address both the existing research questions in humanities, to explore new questions, and to develop new theoretical concepts that fit the mega-scale of digital culture in the early 21st century.

Patent visualisation is an application of information visualisation. The number of patents has been increasing, encouraging companies to consider intellectual property as a part of their strategy. Patent visualisation, like patent mapping, is used to quickly view a patent portfolio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WIPO Lex</span>

WIPO Lex is an online global database launched in 2010, which provides free public access to intellectual property laws, treaties and judicial decisions from around the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) maintains and develops the database.

An intelligence engine is a type of enterprise information management that combines business rule management, predictive, and prescriptive analytics to form a unified information access platform that provides real-time intelligence through search technologies, dashboards and/or existing business infrastructure. Intelligence Engines are process and/or business problem specific, resulting in industry and/or function-specific marketing trademarks associated with them. They can be differentiated from enterprise resource planning (ERP) software in that intelligence engines include organization-level business rules and proactive decision management functionality.

Patexia Inc. is a privately held intellectual property (IP) company based in Santa Monica, California, U.S. The company was founded in 2010 with the mission to enhance transparency and efficiency in the IP field through a leveraging of the knowledge of an IP-based online community of researchers, attorneys, and stakeholders—described by the company as a “multidisciplinary social network”—for the purpose of information crowdsourcing. In addition, the company combines patent and litigation databases to provide analytical tools regarding the IP field, including the details of attorneys, law firms, companies, and examiners, for its community members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarivate</span> American analytics company

Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for pharmacy and biotech, patents, and regulatory compliance; trademark protection, and domain and brand protection. In the academy and the scientific community, Clarivate is known for being the company which calculates the impact factor, using data from its Web of Science product family, that also includes services/applications such as Publons, EndNote, EndNote Click, and ScholarOne. Its other product families are Cortellis, DRG, CPA Global, Derwent, MarkMonitor, CompuMark, and Darts-ip, and also the various ProQuest products and services.

The Global Brand Database is a free of charge comprehensive online database developed and maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It serves as a global resource for trademark information, providing users with access to a vast collection of international trademark records. The database offers valuable insights and search tools to assist trademark owners, professionals, and researchers in protecting and managing trademarks worldwide. It helps in trademark clearance searches, brand monitoring, and enforcement activities, potential conflicts identification, track trademark applications tracking and registrations, and to take necessary legal actions to safeguard intellectual property rights. Researchers and policy-makers also use the database by accessing trademark data for analysis, policy development, and academic research.

The Global Design Database is a comprehensive online database developed and maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It serves as a global resource for industrial designs, providing users with access to a vast collection of international design records promoting transparency, efficiency, and accessibility in the design system. The database offers valuable tools and search functionalities to assist designers, researchers, intellectual property professionals, and policy-makers in exploring industrial designs worldwide, tracking of design registrations, finding potential conflicts, giving access to design data for analysis, policy development and academic research.

PATENTSCOPE is a global patent database and search system developed and maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It provides free and open access to a vast collection of international patent documents, including patent applications, granted patents, and related technical information.

References

  1. ↑ Oldham, Paul. Chapter 1 Introduction | The WIPO Patent Analytics Handbook.
  2. ↑ Ernst, Holger (2003-09-01). "Patent information for strategic technology management". World Patent Information. 25 (3): 233–242. doi:10.1016/S0172-2190(03)00077-2. ISSN   0172-2190.
  3. ↑ Analytics, WIPO Patent (2020-07-14), wipo-analytics/presentations , retrieved 2021-12-30
  4. ↑ University, Carnegie Mellon. "About - Center for AI and Patent Analysis - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Kitsara, Irene (29 January 2018). "Stages, Tasks, Workflow and Tools in the preparation of Patent Landscape Reports". WIPO Github. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  6. ↑ "An Overview of Patent Analytics Tools - Paul Oldham's Analytics Blog". www.pauloldham.net. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  7. ↑ de Rassenfosse, Gaétan; Kozak, Jan; Seliger, Florian (6 November 2019). "Geocoding of worldwide patent data". Scientific Data. 6 (1): 260. doi:10.1038/s41597-019-0264-6. PMC   6834584 . PMID   31695047.
  8. ↑ WIPO. "WIPO Manual on Open Source Tools for Patent Analytics". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  9. ↑ "The Lens - Free & Open Patent and Scholarly Search". The Lens - Free & Open Patent and Scholarly Search. Retrieved 2022-11-30.
  10. ↑ "Patent Landscape Reports by Other Organizations". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
  11. ↑ Trippe, Anthony (2015). "Guidelines for Preparing Patent Landscape Reports" (PDF). WIPO. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  12. ↑ "WIPO Patent Analytics: WIPO Analytics". WIPO Patent Analytics. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
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