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Methods for Assignee Normalization
- Unknown Assignees where there isn’t a Assignee name in the publication
- Unclean Assignee Names (Misspelt or subsidiaries with different company endings)
- Mergers and Acquisitions of companies
- Multiple Assignees (or Inventor names appearing in the Assignee field)
- Locate assignee from INPADOC family information – The INPADOC database provides information of corresponding patent applications in different countries and these may include the assignee name.
- Locate assignee using Inventor matching – The same inventors may have appeared in patents that have an assignee name. Further if the attorney too is same and/or the filing is around the same time, then one can assume with confidence that the Assignee for the unknown record will be the same.
- Locate assignee from US Assignments Database (Only for US records) – US applications may have already had an assignment event at the PTO which would be available from the Assignments database and this would make it easy to lookup the Assignee.
Using Thesaurus for Categorization
In Patent iNSIGHT Pro the standard thesaurus option allows you to maintain term taxonomies and Assignee groups. Mostly you would be using this for cleanup activities. However recently at a client group meet, I was asked if it was possible to store complex search queries as synonyms for a technology term and manage them in Thesaurus type files.
Before describing how, I will quickly explain the need. Most users create multiple UDC (User Defined Categories) sets as custom data points to map/analyze a patent set. Categories can be - By Functionality, By Ingredient, By Product, By Technology-specific class etc. To begin with a user creates the category schema and then using Advanced Search, performs complex searches within the report and pushes the resulting patents into each category. So it appears logical to save the searches done along with the category name in fashion similar to a thesaurus. This is helpful not just for automation but also to allow for future use in a different report.
So lets get to how we can do this. There is an option introduced last year called Create UDC from Excel, which allows you to prepare these categories-search mappings and store them in Excel files. These files are like Thesauruses that you can manage and extend over time.
For example, let’s take the Fuel Additives technology space. There was a report we did on this that is available here.
A portion of the categorization from the report is shown below:
Say we wanted to have a thesaurus for the Fuel Additive categories listed under “Types”. A Sample Excel Thesaurus for this shown below:
Note: I have shown only some of the categories under Types.
In the excel sheet notice that search strings are treated as synonyms and separated by a comma. By default, each string is assumed to be searched against full-text but if you want to restrict it to a portion then you can do so as shown for Lubricants above. Also for Lubricants you can see that, synonyms may not be a text term and can also be an IPC code (or USPC/ECLA) too.
The comma can be replaced with an OR operator to create a single search string without affecting results. Although managing different shorter strings as synonyms separated by a comma is easier to interpret and resembles a thesaurus.
The Excel file can be passed to the Create UDC from Excel feature and at the preview stage you can even drag-drop the category to create a hierarchy.
The synonyms (aka search strings) are searched in the text of patents and the results are pushed into corresponding categories.
So the excel file like the one shown above works like a thesaurus which you can prepare and maintain for your technology categorization purposes. It is also more flexible than a typical thesaurus since:
- you can combine non-text portions such as Classification codes
- you can use proximity operators within words
- you can force some words to be searched only in claims and some other in full-text within the same synonym group
- you can include ignore words by using NOT operator
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Antivirus |
(Antivirus not w/5 (computer or network or internet)), (Anti-virus not w/5 (computer or network or internet)), (Protease w/2 inhibitor*), Ribozyme, … … |
Overview and use of Correlation Maps
We recently introduced a new method to display network mode maps in VizMAP and this blog focuses on discussing details of this map.
First, a recap on network mode maps. Let us look at a very simple table of 5 companies vs IPC Main classes on a random sample of patents an applications on antivirus. The data in the tabular format is shown below.
If we represent that in network mode of VizMAP it appears as:
Key IPCs in the map are automatically placed in the center and company portfolios are organized around the Assignee-IPC relationship. The patents (smaller dots) are colored by Assignee and shading demarcates individual company portfolios.
Clicking on HO4L IPC Node will highlight all records that fall under this category:
As you can see few records of each Company are classified under the H04L. Now we could also shade the portfolios by IPC but that would overlap with the existing companywise shading and make the map complicated. So if you wanted to quickly see a similar correlation between all IPC codes and all Assignees without having to click on each node? That’s where the correlation map comes in. The correlation map for the same data is shown below:
The map clearly shows how many records relate two nodes and the thickness of the line is also proportional to the number of correlating records. In addition to the data in the matrix the display also shows correlation between different IPC nodes. You can restrict the map to only the type of correlations you want to see and in the process bring out a visual that perhaps best represents the matrix data.
The correlation dosent need to be just Number of common records. We can have a co-citation map in the same display where the correlation is based on Number of common citing records. For example in the Fuel Additives patent set that we created for one of our Technology Insight Reports on Fuel Additives , a co-citation map for the Top-10 companies is shown below.
The map clearly shows that research on Fuel Additives happening at Chevron Corp and BASF AG is strongly related.
Patent Landscaping For IP Investments
Comparable to virtually any other financial investment services based businesses like securities, commodities, stocks and asset management, IP investments (a.k.a buying or investing in strategic IP assets and associated companies) also requires access to the best information systems and knowledge platforms which form the basis of making the right strategic moves. Access to large up-to-date data sources, ability to process and analyze vast amounts of data into actionable intelligence are paramount to decision making.
So what kind of research data facilitates such actions? In many ways, research for IP investments is similar to research that is done for new product development or when venturing into a new product space.
For example, say an organization is looking to make investments in a relatively new technology that may not have existed long enough in the market place. For example CNT or Carbon Nano Tubes CNT or Carbon Nano Tubes which is making headways in the material sciences, energy and semiconductors space. While there are some figures on the production costs as well as the projected market figures on demand for Carbon Nano Tubes, it’s still an infant market and there may not be much data for calculating the traction this new material is gaining. By analyzing past and new patent application filings (including journal articles)for CNT related research, one can evaluate a true measure of research interest in CNT and correlate some of these trends along with the financial projections to get a deeper view into how this market is evolving. Breaking down the total patent set across different market segments can serve as start point for slicing it into smaller patent pools. These pools can further be broken by ownership into individual, company or group holdings and can be rated based on their forward citations and other commercial or legal factors.
One can also undertake keyword analysis to locate Technology terms or topics that are rapidly rising in the near term (Emerging technologies) is also useful when deciding which patent pools to further investigate. A detailed Patent Landscape Patent Landscape may also include analysis such as Product-Patent maps covering new products that use CNT as a core or replacement technology, patent pools mapped across a Problems vs Technology-aiding-the-Solution matrix.
While patent analysis has traditionally been related to research and development teams working on technical aspects of innovation and building IP portfolios around their products, the financial sphere is picking up and a secondary market for buying and selling patent is developing. The IP Investments sector is all about strategically driving value from intellectual property investments; be it acquiring valuable patent portfolios, licensing patent portfolios or selling IP assets.
Building On Demand Patent Analysis Capabilities - Tips For Speedy IP Insights
For most IP professionals the capabilities in terms of undertaking patent analytics to deliver broader trends within specific patent sets are determined by what kind of insights they can come up with which will support decision making, new product development, marketing and other areas. It’s a skill perfected by working with large patent sets across numerous categories over a significant amount of time and experienced patent analysts have become indispensable to the innovation driven organizations. While some organizations can hire this talent, others prefer to engage the services of professional patent analysts who can deliver patent landscapes and reports based on the requirements submitted. Important decisions are often made on the basis of these patent insights and the knowledge requirements for such data usually surface in two scenarios:
1) Where in-depth analysis needs to be done across a number of different technology areas where multiple patent sets need to be created. These then need to be analyzed to answer several highly specific questions such as “How can the number of forward citations on a set of our patents be compared to a similar set of patents from our competitors over the past 5 years?” These insights need to be processed and delivered when ready and time is not a serious concern as they are needed more for knowledge than immediate decisions.
2) Where quick answers or broader insights are needed quickly to have immediate birds-eye view of things before going into a decision which again needs to be made in a short time period. For example, a company going into a meeting with another company that holds patents on XYZ technology which the former is interested in licensing. Now if they need to know “What aspects of the overall technology space are dependent on XYZ technology, how active are other firms in the space and does it cover most Asian and European markets that we wish to operate in?” In this scenario, speed is of the essence and realistically there may not be enough time to engage a third party firm to carry out analysis.
The second scenario is the one where organizations that have their own IP knowledge resources and capabilities have the upper hand. It need not be expensive or complicated to build those capabilities which one can rely on to generate these on demand patent analysis. With software solutions like Patent iNSIGHT Pro , various analytics, insights and even landscapes can be generated fairly quickly when required. As a best practice, if IP professionals within the company frequently create, store, categorize and sort through the patent sets on areas relevant to their organizations, the process of creating on demand reports and analysis becomes that much quicker.
Most time is spent not just on the analysis side of things but in locating the right patents, searching for specific data, categorizing data and re-work on the search strategy. By doing these tasks once and saving them so that they can be quickly retrieved when needed, significant time can be saved and the process of generating reports to look at broader trends or creating on-demand analysis reports can be speeded up.
For example, when we carry out research for our series of Technology Insight Reports , we first decide what kind of insights we would need from this technology. Based on this, we search through a patent database and create the patent sets we would need to analyze for the project. In some cases such as the report on LED Lighting Technology where we needed to compare LED based Lighting patent filings with that of Fluorescent and Incandescent technologies, separate patent sets needed to be created for each technology and saved. Once stored however, it was easy to go back and pull up those patent sets every time a new type of analysis has to be done.
So if speed is an important factor when it comes to building and delivering quick IP insights for your organization, focus first on identifying the patent sets and categories you will frequently require. Save them, categorize or sort them once and the rest will be simpler!
Focusing on core and managing research data efficiently during IP analysis
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Core Activities |
Tools needed to speed up execution |
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Devising the search strategy |
Database to allow quick checking and refining of the search as the search made more precise. |
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Consolidating multiple searches into a common portfolio |
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Claims Analysis, Review and Rating, Narrowing down |
Generating Claims comparison charts |
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Claims Tree generation |
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Similarity search and tools to conduct advanced search (proximity/left-truncation etc) on claims |
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Tagging or scoring tools to mark important records as you come across them |
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Independent Claims exporting |
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Different patent text export formats including export of face pages for rapid review and scanning in a team environment |
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Categorizing and bucketing records |
Auto-Categorization to discover unique concepts and clusters present in the set |
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Tools to easily and efficiently create buckets and bucketise patents as you review them |
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Advanced search tools to dig through the data efficiently |
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Generating charts, comparisons and dashboards that capture the insight you want to give |
Grouping and efficient slice-dice tools to accelerate the analysis process |
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Efficient matrix generators that allows you to compare 2, 3 or more properties at a time |
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Automated charting tools to convert filtered data quickly into a chart |
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Ready to use dashboards that allow you to gain insights and generate common analysis charts quickly |
USPTO Patent Data Now On Google
Till recently you could “Google” patents and perhaps find some of what you were looking for but just as you would for just about any other information. Now with the announcement of Google and the USPTO having entered into an agreement to make the following USPTO products available on Google there is a vast amount of patent data which has just become more accessible. With the ability to simply go to Google and bulk download large sets of patent texts, assignments, images and other information the data has been thrown open for those who can leverage it.
Although bulk patent data sourced from subscription based databases will continue to offer valuable features, the availability of USPTO data on Google is a reaffirmation that we’re quickly moving towards an age where massive amounts of valuable data is readily available for analysis. The focus and challenges are gradually moving towards the efficient management of such quantities of data and extracting exactly intelligence from it.
The development will perhaps pave way for content-driven in-house search and analysis systems that provide a destination for bulk patent data and go further in extracting insights in different ways from it. Due to the nature, format and size of the data, its unlikely to be usable directly by end users and so IP search systems that can support the formats and organize the information may appear soon. As access to patent data through open information channels increases the need to handle the IP information being researched and be able to analyze and report it quickly and efficiently becomes a priority.
With the right tools and software to manage it efficiently, this data could be an invaluable information and research asset.
Patent Litigation Battles And Victories Getting Bigger
Are patent litigation battles in courts and the rewards for being victorious in these battles getting bigger? The 2009 statistics recently published by CorporateCounsul.com sure seem to indicate this is true. The publication revealed the “top ten victories from 2009's intellectual property litigation docket” which featured some stunning rewards within these ranks including a patent award verdict in favor of Johnson & Johnson for $1.64 billion which is the highest ever recorded.
A press release on the same subject lists some of the other big victories published by General Counsel and said:
Other notable IP litigation victories that made this year's list include:It’s clear the litigation battles are getting bigger and the rewards reaped by the victors are also on the rise. For those on the other side of these litigation battles, the damages are just as big and the role of information in these battles is ever-increasing in importance. Patent data and access to great patent knowledge management tools and technology has become instrumental on both sides of patent litigation. Those who are looking to protect their patents and keep an eye out for infringements use extensive technology to ensure deeper insights into what is going on within their space and be equipped to take on anyone who infringe on their IP. On the other side, those seeking loopholes or spaces within the existing patents to find lucrative opportunities also need to have reliable research capabilities to avoid any traps or mines in the form of patents.
- A rare permanent injunction against Microsoft won by Canadian software maker i41--plus a damages award of $290 million.
- A major win by seven Hollywood movie companies granting a preliminary injunction blocking the sale of RealDVD, a software program that would let users make personal copies of their own DVDs on up to five computers.
- Versata Software's $138.64 million verdict against German software vendor SAP AG for infringing a pair of patents covering software that helps customers manage pricing for products along complex distribution networks.
- A California federal district court ruling that allowed Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel's family to recapture key rights to the superhero, the latest news in the ongoing epic battle between DC Comics and Warner Brothers on one side and the Superman heirs on the other.
With litigation being either a battle that must be one or one that must be completely avoided depending on which side of the legal scale one is on, having a strong IP knowledge management infrastructure in place can provide an upper hand. For now, with the way 2010 is shaping up, we are bound to see some equally big legal battles over patents and equally large amounts of settlements switching hands.
An Insight Into WIPO 2009 International Patent Filings
Industrialized Nations Vs Developing Nations
Are the innovation efforts of more industrialized nations more susceptible to significant declines as a result of the economic conditions as compared to the developing counties? The filings seem to suggest so. While USA, Germany, Sweden and Canada showed declines of 11.4%, 11.2%, 11.3% and 11.7% respectively, China had an increase of 29.7% in patent filings.
Top 5 Counties for Patent Filings & How They Fared In 2008 vs 2009
Electronics Dominate The Applications
The electronics industry dominated the patent filings charts with most of the top 10 and a significant portion of the top 100 featuring electronics manufacturers. Japans Panasonic Corp, China’s Huawei Technologies and Germany’s Robert Bosch GMBH taking the top three spots.
Developing Countries To Look Out For
Korea, China, India, Brazil and South Africa lead patent filings from developing countries with Turkey, Malaysia, Mexico and Barbados close behind. Korea and China which were earlier looked upon more as manufacturing centers of the world are rapidly evolving to becoming innovative economies as figures show.
In terms of share in filings amongst developing countries, Korea and China lead with a sizable lead over the rest and competitively gaining ground over several developed nations too.
While 2009 with it’s economic significance may not be indicative of the upcoming years, the WIPO patent filings show there are some significant global implications to how the world’s innovation centers are evolving.
Analyzing Increasingly Large Patent Sets To Fuel Innovation Of Tomorrow
Perhaps one of the most significant drivers for this pace is information technology and the instant availability of the vast existing knowledge base (patent and journal databases) for scientists and innovators to build on it. While researching and analyzing past technologies has always been a part of the process for those on a quest to discover something new, the process in the past relied on the ability to go through vast amounts of information manually, carry out analysis and then use that knowledge to take things to the next level. The same process applies today but the speed at which existing knowledge can be analyzed has been increasing tremendously.
For example, if one is looking for alternatives to fossil fuels and traditional energy sources the first phase would involve going through past efforts to understand what’s been done, then looking for patterns, gaps and opportunities within that data and finally being able to find a direction to focus your research or investigation on. Prior to advancements in text processing and software in general, this involved gathering and sifting through piles of existing patents and journal citations. However the sheer number of patents alone (> 5000) that exist in alternative energy technology as well as patents indirectly related to these, the older procedure can take weeks, months or longer
Organizing IP Research across different technology verticals of interest is a pressing need for corporate IP practitioners. A in-depth research and analysis effort which used to take a long time can now effectively done used advanced search and fast scanning tools present in patent analysis and research platforms. Being able to quickly report on different technologies, integrate feedback from sales and R&D into your IP research and present a unified output is now possible by the use of such solutions.
Knowledge management in the IP and innovation space is getting better and quicker everyday. With it, the kind of analyzed and precise information that research teams can have access to is revolutionizing the speed at which companies innovate and thereby giving them an edge over their competition. While this isn’t helping the situation at the patent offices with the back logs of applications there is still a brighter side to it for innovators: there are quick and efficient ways to get insights from large reference information sets and build a better tomorrow..