Patent iNSIGHT Pro - Blog

Methods for Assignee Normalization

Harshad Karmarkar — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:41:59 GMT

Normalization is the process of efficiently organizing data in to eliminate redundancies. In patent analysis, Assignee Normalization is a process of preparing clean and accurate Assignee names from the raw data that exists on the published record. When assignees are not present or organized properly, the accuracy of the analysis is greatly hampered and the results cannot be relied upon.

Let’s summarize the different challenges users face with respect to Assignees when working with patent data. These are:

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)

The methods used to tackle each of the above challenges are different and there isn’t one size fits all approach possible. In this blog, we will take a look some of these methods.

Unknown Assignees

There are different methods used to locate probable assignees for records that don’t have one. This aspect is seen in US patent applications that do not have an assignee name until right before grant (mostly because companies don’t want to reveal their identities until the last moment). A user can use the following methods for locating probable Assignee for such records:

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.

Finally if none of the above work, the user can either manually provide an Assignee name to the record or instruct the software to use the inventor name as Assignee name. Patent iNSIGHT Pro has automated tools for each of the above method that leverage the above logic used and provide Assignee suggestions to the user.

Unclean Assignee Names

Auto cleanup is used to combine large group of assignee and to create small groups which can be used for further analysis. This process is faster and mostly precise as compared to manual process. This activity can be performed by fuzzy matching, thesaurus matching and regular expression based pattern matching.

Unclean assignee names may be in the form of misspellings of assignee names or subtle differences in naming of a company, occurrences of duplicate entries, no unique assignee records.

Fuzzy algorithm based merging of names might not be effective in cases where names are very short of when names phonetically sound similar (Short Chinese names). For this, we can use manual cleanup, wherein you can create groups manually. In Patent iNSIGHT Pro, a list of all unique assignees present in the patent data set is provided and then the user can choose any one of the above method to merge name. As seen in the figure below, it is evident that the selected set of assignees is the same organization.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In case of US records, for companies to be able to take action on any patent, they must report their ownership to the USPTO as per section 37 CFR 3.73 . This information is publicly available in the US Assignment database and is highly valuable resource to track ownership. So if a user wants to find updated ownership information such as change of name, mergers, execution date, assignments database helps in tracking. Patent iNSIGHT Pro integrates with the latest Assignment data and gives current owner suggestions for all US patents and applications.

Multiple Assignees

Instead of having multiple assignee names, for simpler and precise analysis, a single assignee per document is useful. In many cases especially for WO applications, inventor names that as present as co-applicants may show up in the Assignee field and so it’s important to be able to remove these. Patent iNSIGHT Pro has automated tools to identify inventor names in the Assignee field and remove them. The alternative for the user is to manually go through the names which take a lot of time for large datasets.

Using Thesaurus for Categorization

Manish Sinha — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:25:36 GMT

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

The last point is pretty useful. For example a thesaurus entry for Antivirus (in biochemical field) can be:

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,

…

Doesn’t this seem like the obvious thing to do if you want to save and automate the process of categorizing records for use in other reports?

Overview and use of Correlation Maps

Manish Sinha — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:41:00 GMT

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

Manish Sinha — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:15:00 GMT

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

Manish Sinha — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:32:00 GMT

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

Manish Sinha — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:48:00 GMT

For IP professionals working in a patent law firm, a R&D driven company, research facility or even in a service provider, managing patent research process is plagued with inefficiencies. With consumers of research information asking for faster turnaround times albeit with higher accuracies every professional must look into his/her research workflow and locate inefficiencies that are delaying the overall analysis process.

Based on our experience of working with researchers across a diverse set of organizations, we have split the overall activities performed by researchers into various core activities.

Core Activities	Tools needed to speed up execution
Devising the search strategy	Database to allow quick checking and refining of the search as the search made more precise.
Devising the search strategy	Consolidating multiple searches into a common portfolio
Claims Analysis, Review and Rating, Narrowing down	Generating Claims comparison charts
	Claims Tree generation
	Similarity search and tools to conduct advanced search (proximity/left-truncation etc) on claims
	Tagging or scoring tools to mark important records as you come across them
	Independent Claims exporting
	Different patent text export formats including export of face pages for rapid review and scanning in a team environment
Categorizing and bucketing records	Auto-Categorization to discover unique concepts and clusters present in the set
	Tools to easily and efficiently create buckets and bucketise patents as you review them
	Advanced search tools to dig through the data efficiently
Generating charts, comparisons and dashboards that capture the insight you want to give	Grouping and efficient slice-dice tools to accelerate the analysis process
	Efficient matrix generators that allows you to compare 2, 3 or more properties at a time
	Automated charting tools to convert filtered data quickly into a chart
	Ready to use dashboards that allow you to gain insights and generate common analysis charts quickly

An IP research and analysis solution can provide IP professionals, tools to leverage at each stage of core activity execution so that they can focus on core activities without getting slowed down by procedures.

Working with IP data is characterized by working with a large input data sources and a large number of output data sources. To carry out what should be a well-researched analysis in a technology space would involve a patent database, several patent documents, patent text files, spreadsheets, working files, charts and reports. A lot of this becomes overwhelming when working only with spreadsheets. For example, the outputs alone would involve working with several spreadsheets let alone the spreadsheets which actually hold the source information and the working / analysis. There are just too many files and data sheets to work with in different places and that’s often what makes the process difficult.

In addition to provision different analytic tools, an efficient analytics platform can also consolidate and organize these multiple files and data sheets into a single location so as to simplify management of the process.

Consolidation has been a key ingredient of the technology architecture of the Patent iNSIGHT Pro that also functions as an IP knowledge management software. From bringing together various patent databases and data sources to creating single view reporting dashboards for easy reviewing of outputs having all your data within reach from a single system alone improves the speed at which you can access IP intelligence. It eliminates the need to navigate through several instances of Excel spreadsheets, various tabs with different data sources and multiple files across the desktop and allows you to manage everything through one interface. As a step torwards consolidating different analytics into a single view, the 360° series of reports one of the newer features on Patent iNSIGHT Pro for example, consolidates a number of report outputs into a single page dashboard view which is quicker and simpler to present and review as compared to a dozen output spreadsheet printouts which can take longer to comprehend.

If you find your IP research and associated information management process overwhelming with multiple files and data sheets across too many locations …consolidate! You will find things can become a lot quicker and far simpler.

USPTO Patent Data Now On Google

Manish Sinha — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:39:00 GMT

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

Muthu Ramalingam — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 07:49:00 GMT

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:

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.

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.

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

Muthu Ramalingam — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:26:00 GMT

The WIPO Patent Filings Report was published last month and at first glance 2009 seems like a year when innovation was held back by the economic turmoil especially across developed countries. Overall the report shows a 4.5% decline in filings from the 2008 figures but despite the decline, it also reveals some interesting insights into the changing face of innovation globally. Here are just some of the insights the 2009 international patent filings reveal:

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

Muthu Ramalingam — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:08:00 GMT

The backed up patent applications at most patent offices and long waits to process new applications may be annoying for most inventors and businesses alike but it amplifies just how fast innovation is happening today as compared to a decade or two ago.

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..

Interactive Intellectual Property Research Delivery – and Paperless too

Muthu Ramalingam — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:45:00 GMT

A very recently published article by David Flint and Valerie Surgenor titled “United Kingdom: Innovators Encouraged To Go Paperless” emphasizes the calls from various governments around the world in recent times to cut down on paper intensive work processes. This measure in the UK comes just as Gene Quinn’s IP Watchdog carried a post titled “President Obama Call USPTO Filling System Embarrassing” where Gene points out:

“Essentially, President Obama said that the way the Patent Office handles electronically filed patent applications is to print them and scan them. Sadly, that is not true, or is at least extremely misleading. It is certainly true that the Patent Office used to do things that way, but since the new EFS Web system was unveiled on March 16, 2006, electronically filed patent applications are not printed and then scanned.”

The Intellectual Property research process, albeit different from patent office work, is also a data intensive one and in recent times appears to be moving towards electronic and interactive outputs as opposed to paper based reports or static PDFs.

At Patent iNSIGHT Pro, we see a similar trends. Analysts who used the product two years back to prepare reports in Word/Excel/PDFs/PowerPoint are now asking for enterprise class implementations where they can set up online dashboard for the information consumers. This is as true for in-house counsels, as it is for service providers who want to give secure access to such interactive dashboards to their clients.

When it comes to IP research, speed is of the essence as is access to those within an organization who need it. Whether needed by management, product development teams, legal team or business development teams, the need to get the information required and a live dashboard with built in analytics features of drill-down and filtering goes well to serve the needs of multiple different people. While working with static reports this is severe road block. Usually when CxOs are presented with the research output they would have further questions and its very convenient and effective if they can quickly answer that right then from a real-time interactive dashboard.

All taken into consideration while reducing paper usage is a good enough reason to start shifting towards more automated means of managing all the research being done, it’s not the only reason to consider it. Automated delivery of research output and interactive analytics at the front end is clearly the way forward and cannot be achieved if the research is scattered across in physical documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other documents

Charge-Coupled Device - The Electronic Eye

Muthu Ramalingam — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:16:00 GMT

Willard Boyle and George Smith are two innovators who just last week got the recognition they long deserved for their contribution which quite literally changed the way we see the world. The two Nobel laureates who were presented their Nobels for Physics in Norway last week invented the charge-coupled device which most of us commonly know as the CCD which is the core technology used by digital cameras today. What is fascinating is Boyle and Smith had invented the CCD 40 years ago back in 1969 and though all these years later as they collect what is perceived to be the highest accolade in science, perhaps the bigger prize was seeing how the finger nail sized device they came up with touched the lives of so many.

One of the largest impact it’s had is in the development of the digital photo camera which almost each of us own whether in the form of an SLR camera, a point and shoot digital camera or even one that’s housed in our mobile phones. The core CCD technology is now being used in a variety of technologies and almost all electronic and appliances firms are involved in applications around it.

To see who is active and aggressive in CCD related research, we did a broad search on CCD technology and using Patent iNSIGHT Pro came up with a couple of quick stats. The first one is the overall trend across key Assignees that shows that while Samsung and Kodak have been periodically filing for patents in this space, recent research has subsided for other large companies such as Hyundai, Fuji and Sony. One can easily see the emergence of Hon Hai precision Co as a recent company in this space.

To confirm this further, we split the company portfolios across 5 year sets (2000-2004) and (2005-2010) to compare their trends:

The above chart shows that big companies that have renewed interest in CCD and related technologies are Siemens, Honeywell, General Electric, Philips and Xerox. The activity analysis further shows some firms building targeted portfolios such as Hong Fu Jin Precision Co, Chemimage, Avision and ASML Holdings NV.

The trends of General Electric and Hon Hai Precision clearly stand out since both do not have any filings that talk about CCDs in 2000-2004 and have 16 and 68 filings respective in the last 5 years. To find out the focus areas of these filings, we used text clustering on the individual portfolios of each company. The analysis showed that the GE filings focus on Radiation detection, Scintillators, Plasma spectroscopy and X-rays. Hon Hai Precision Co’s focus was more on camera lens for imaging, monitoring and measuring across a variety of areas right from vehicular systems to cameras.

Finally, to know the different research areas in which CCD technology has grown into and their trends we took the IPC distribution again across a 5 year period and compares the growth/decay from 2000-2004 period to 2005-2010 period. This is shown below:

To sum up, forty years into the technology life-cycle, CCD is still going strong with companies across the world still discovering new applications in various areas with the help of this device.

Flow of IP Knowledge & Patent Intelligence Through a Organization

Muthu Ramalingam — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:37:00 GMT

The European Patent Academy did an insightful presentation Patent & Innovation Management at Istanbul at the start of this month. While the presentation covers a wider topic, a single slide on the innovation process stands out to demonstrate the importance of having a robust IP knowledge management system in place to ensure the flow of information along side the process.

The innovation process involves:

Creation of Ideas >> Project Design >> Project Development >> Production >> Market Launch

In any innovation driven business each of these areas can be further broken down into multiple activities which revolve around the development and management of intellectual property including activities like filing for new patents, protecting IP assets, maneuvering through competitors patents, strategic product development and more. However the value of right information is critical throughout the cycle. IP knowledge and intelligence functions as a support pillar right from creation of ideas to marketing the product and right through the product life-cycle.

The entire innovation process is supported and seen through by multiple departments and functions within the company. Its a combined effort of research, thinkers, designers, developers, legal professionals, finance, marketing, strategy and others and each of them must rely on IP intelligence to guide them through their roles in the innovation process. Having an in-house IP Knowledge Management platform helps since IP knowledge, access to it and ability to use it well is a common requirement across each department who has a role in this process. With such systems a company can offer a common knowledge platform that can be leveraged across the board. Along with patents even scientific literature like journals and other publications can be processed to provide intelligence on markets, customers, technology, processes, business strategies, risks, opportunities and competitors which can aid everyone involved in the innovation process.

The efficient flow of IP data and intelligence within an organization can fuel better innovation and translate into more gains for businesses.

Incremental Innovation – Pushing The Boundaries Of Product Development

Muthu Ramalingam — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:36:00 GMT

Every one of us has the ability to innovate, be creative and develop something new. We do this by developing on something we already know and pushing it to the next level. That is how innovation happens even on the larger business levels if you take a big step back and look at it quite simply:

Existing Knowledge + Improving On It = Incremental Innovation

We often look at research and development as a function which relies on very extensive knowledge of what exists around us and then looking for ways to improve on it and take it up a notch. This is echoed in a brilliant post I recently read by Gord Hotchkiss titled “Predicting Innovation” where he says:

Great innovation builds on what comes before it. This lines up with something I have long believed – there is no such thing as revolutionary innovation, just a series of incremental evolutionary innovations that at some point reaches a tipping point and appears to be revolutionary. I've used the iPhone as an example before.

Great Innovation does not require people to make radical changes in beliefs or behavior - Again, with incremental innovation, the market must understand the innovation and relate it to something they're used to. The iPhone made smartphones smarter, more fun and more useful. It didn't require us to make a great leap of

The same applies to just about any industry whether pharmaceuticals, healthcare, automobiles or technology. Every breakthrough product has been a result of extensive research and understanding of what has already been developed by others in the field and making incremental improvements which can often translate into a considerable jump forward.

Acquiring and managing information and knowledge is a large part of the incremental innovation process and having the right systems in place can support this process to great degree. Access to the right technical papers, patent information and related data open up avenues to increase the knowledge base one has to work with. And that leads to a common problem today – Information overload. How you manage all the information, create data points from assimilation of the information then bring out insights is as important as having access to the information.

Therein comes the need for knowledge mining solutions that help you unlock insights from the masses of data with ease and efficiency and further also help in overall managing the information so that you can quickly refer back to it at a later period of time. We recently referred to such a solution as - intellectual property knowledge management solutions in our Enterprise Edition Solution Brief. The ‘flow of’ insights from IP data is critical to the R&D process is setting up the right processes with a robust system in place can help them focus more on the most important component of incremental innovation mentioned above- “Improving On It”. This is after all where abilities to make a difference come in and innovative skills are rewarded.

Improving on what is known is where the focus of product development should be instead of re-inventing what is already known. With the help of the right knowledge solutions which can accelerate the information management process, product development teams know where the boundaries are and can redirect their energies towards pushing these boundaries forward. Isn’t that the key to breakthrough developments?

Innovation and R&D Picks Up

Muthu Ramalingam — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:49:00 GMT

As companies leave the worst of the global recession behind them and economies with the help of stimulus packages from their respective governments are starting to pick up again there is acceleration in R&D and innovation as well. News and blog posts in the innovation realm look positive with more frequent stories of spending on R&D is gradually picking up. Reports suggested that investment on R&D during the recession did increase even during the recession although at a lower rate than previous years. This post by Mark J Perry titled Despite Recession, Innovation Is Alive and Well. In the post Mark reveals

“In the face of a severe global recession, the world’s 1,000 largest publicly traded corporate research and development spenders increased R&D budgets in 2008, affirming the critical importance of innovation to their corporate strategies, according to Booz & Company’s Global Innovation 1000, the global management consulting firm’s fifth annual analysis of global innovation spending. R&D spending at these firms rose 5.7% in 2008, a slower rate of growth than the prior year’s 10% increase, but in line with the group’s 6.5% increase in worldwide sales. More than two-thirds of the companies included in this year’s Global Innovation 1000 maintained or increased R&D spending in 2008, even though a third of the companies reported a financial loss for the year.

However during the downturn almost every business had to look into it’s processes and make changes that would help see them through this rough financial period and whatever those changes were, they are not likely to go away in the near future. Mergers and Acquisitions in IP pickedup as many smaller firms facing closure had their IP up for sale. While some large businesses were also looking at trimming their patent portfolios others with a larger cash reserves were busy aggregating portfolios that were valuable and available for pennies to the dollar. Many IP departments were forced to look at operational efficiencies and as to how they can save time and cost and achieve better output. Innovation and R&D are no exceptions to this. Although organizations know that innovation is key to secure future success and will continue to invest in R&D, they are also likely to continue to look for ways to improve their R&D processes and innovate smart rather than by pouring capital into it.

Smarter innovation practices can be through using online collaboration platforms and getting customers more involved in the process. It can be through seeking strategic partnerships with other organizations working towards similar technologies to share R&D costs and speed up efforts. It could be through improving patent information sharing systems and having access to better information, making smarter, better calculated decisions and avoiding mistakes that can cost time and money. The possibilities are plenty. What is left to do is find out how to innovate smarter and strengthen the process from the inside and make it more efficient. After all innovation needs to work towards creating revenue and advantages for the business and not be perceived as a cost center or financial black hole.

Perhaps the recession in many ways helped organizations pause and take a look at how they were functioning and pushed everyone to seek improved ways to go about it. Though the pressure has eased, hopefully, the will to keep improving and making R&D more efficient will not fade away too quickly.

Going Green Calls For Collaborative Innovation

Muthu Ramalingam — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:47:00 GMT

Every year a spike of innovation marked by an increase in patent filings happens in one or more of the several industry segments and creates a buzz grabbing everyone’s attention. This year one that comes to attention instantly is going green. The global initiative on battling climate change has gathered tremendous momentum this year as compared to the past and combines with several other environmental issues faced globally such as depleting mineral energy resources and waste the emphasis on innovation to work towards environmentally friendly technology and sustainable businesses has reached a new level.

A recent news article on Green Energy Reporter said:

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted some 271 clean energy patents during the third quarter of 2009, which is the highest amount of approved patents in a single quarter, according to the latest Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) compiled by law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti.

While companies across the globe are stepping up their research and development efforts to step up discoveries of greener energy sources, finding solutions to the issues we face is not just restricted to energy. CleanTechnica.com published a great article on how leading footwear manufacturer Nike has been using innovation and collaboration to develop footwear and apparels out of sustainable and recyclable material while making it financially viable for production as soon as possible. An extract quoted Nike in that article said:

From Nike: The long-term vision for Considered is to design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials, designed for easy disassembly while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life. By 2011, 100 percent of footwear will meet baseline Considered standards, apparel by 2015 and equipment by 2020 – creating better performing products while minimizing environmental impact by reducing waste, using environmentally preferred materials and eliminate toxins.

Organizations have set themselves very tight deadlines and understand they are working against time when it comes to “going green”. That means the research and development organizations have to step up the innovation, look for ways to tap ideas from universities and external teams (Open Innovation) and move quicker. Researching internal generated IP and external IP is a key information driver for Open Innovation.

How you organize all the researched information is as important as conducting the research since you can quickly hit information overload. Having the right Intellectual Property Knowledge Management system is important for a better organized, more efficient process. Being better organized involves improving workflows and improving management and communication of analyzed information to the decision maker in minimum time. Well managed patent data can help tremendously in the research process, understanding what competitors are doing, finding collaborators working in a similar direction, acquiring technology needed to speed up the process and more. You can then make internal workflows quicker and efficient and easily share data involved in the innovation process both within departments across the organization and outside with partners or third parties involved.

The race against time to develop greener alternatives to the way we function today will require the best minds to come together in a quest for solutions and thereby compel companies to come together, work collaboratively, share information and innovate. That calls for organizations to be more open about IP research and have systems that can scale to support research happening locally and externally.

Nokia Vs Apple iPhone The Patent Battle Intensifies - Where Is The Reward For Innovation?

Muthu Ramalingam — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:25:00 GMT

In telecom circles everyone is following the patent infringement battle between Nokia and Apple with keen interest on how it pans out. Nokia claims Apple infringed on no less than 10 of it’s patents related to wireless standards with the launch of the iPhone and no royalties or licensing fees have been paid by Apple till date. What started out as a competitive strategy battle has made it’s way to federal court and the battle has intensified having the online users everywhere support their favorite cell phone manufacturers and having their own little war on blogs and web publications. The Silicon Valley Insider ‘s Business Insider published a post titled “Lame Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone Patent Infringement “ making their view clear in support of their home team Apple but it questions whether their stand would be down played had the tables been turned and Nokia used Apple’s Multi-Touch technologies in their line smart phones clearly taking away Apple’s innovative advantage. Calling a company “lame” for protecting or enforcing its IP may be a little over the top. After all aren’t patents a strategic advantage rewarding innovation?

The cell phone manufacturing industry has always been one driven by innovation with the companies which have been able to think out of the box and innovate being rewarded with market share. There was a time not too long ago when Motorola was the force to reckon with. Although their market share gradually diminished and they lost out to other handset makers, their intellectual property rights portfolio has long out lived and out-performed their handset sales as companies today still license many core components which were invented and patented by Motorola. Virtually every handset manufacturer has had to build their new products by licensing some components or technologies from others patents. What is not very clear and yet to come out is whether Apple missed these patents while developing and launching the iPhone or if they were aware that they were open to patent infringement claims and decided to ignore it till something came up.

In any technology intensive industry it’s not impossible to miss patents which should have been brought to attention during the research and development process or during product development and marketing. Patent research and competitive monitoring data is often managed by multiple people across departments using a multitude of databases, systems, software and vendors. IP research and analysis for new product development can get quite unwieldy without a comprehensive patent system and process for managing workflows and tracking patent sets and it isn’t all that difficult to overlook technologies and their underlying patents that could be very important to have noted. Here is an extract from the post carried by the Business Insider which can put things into perspective:

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 40 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of GSM technologies and its evolution to UMTS / 3G WCDMA as well as wireless LAN, which is also demonstrated by Nokia's strong patent position in these technologies.

With 10,000 patent families to track and keep an eye on from one manufacturer such as Nokia and likewise many patent portfolios held by other manufacturers in the same space the possibility of patent infringement liabilities is ever present as are the odds of overlooking important patents which could come back at a future date in the form of lawsuits or claims.

Apple in comparison is relatively new in handset market and has already broken ground with its superb UI innovation capabilities which is evident from their iPhone product. The Multi-touch technology which has been patented is just one of those innovations and as Apple’s portfolio grows over time other handset companies will have to keep tabs on Apple’s patents and may find themselves with horns locked in a similar situation some day. While many will base their opinions on whose phone they like better or who their favorite cell phone manufacturer is, the battle is about innovation and the ability to protect IP. In sum, businesses that innovate should be rewarded for their efforts.

Patent Analysis Tools For Intellectual Property Law Firms – The IP Intelligence Advantage

Muthu Ramalingam — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:43:00 GMT

Access to the best possible intelligence is the backbone of any practicing law firm and investments in research and information enhancement capabilities often translates directly into being able to build strong cases for clients. There is no exception to intellectual property law firms when it comes to building intelligence assets.

Most ongoing engagement with clients requires a law firm to have access to quick insights from the set of patents relevant to the case. Insights from having records in a research and analysis platform can immensely help the engagement at different stages.

Here is a quick summary of how patent analysis tools can assist external attorneys in their client engagements:

Firms can efficiently manage IP records that are being researched as part of different client engagements. Searches being done internally or being received from external service providers can be integrated into a common portfolio where the attorney can conduct finer review, refinement and analysis.

Attorneys can quickly open these portfolios in front of a client during a meeting to back up the advise or insight being given.

Patent analysis tools can help attorneys focus on the legal review aspect and spend less time in preparing data and results to to support ongoing litigations.

For most clients, patent text is often quite raw and technical in nature and perhaps not suitable when making a clear statement. Solutions with good analytics and reporting capabilities help present the data in a very clear graphical or tabular format which helps law firms bring out the facts plain and simple in a fashion that makes sense to end users.

Advanced Search Capabilities in tools like Patent iNSIGHT Pro, include features such as SLART (Simultaneous left and right truncation), Approximate searching, Quick similarity matching between Claims across full text of other records can be very useful when conducting infringement and patentability studies.

Tools such as keyword generation and clustering that summarize very specific words, sentences, phrases and even topics within patents could offer a huge advantage when drafting new product application in a congested technology space. ( Here is an earlier article that spoke about how keyword analysis can be done on claims.)

Ability to narrow down and efficiently analyze the right patent set can help conduct preliminary research before filing for new applications for clients. It allows law firms to know of any objections or obstacles patent officers might have even before starting the application process.

Many small and mid-sized technology firms that do not have internal IP research capabilities increasingly rely on external counsel for advice on overall IP strategy. Having the right tools to detect infringement, monitor competitor information, study trends, track recent activity and gather crucial facts is critical for such engagements.

Ongoing Litigation activity also requires data to be analyzed and presented suitably in the court as evidence to back a claim.

Access to intellectual property and patent information per se is not difficult. Being able to have quick access and answers to very specific questions and being able to retrieve facts with speed and ease is what can offer IP and patent law firms the upper hand in their daily practice and the right patent data analysis software can help unlock this advantage.

Key Features of Patent Analysis Tools

Muthu Ramalingam — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:34:00 GMT

Patent analysis tools though all geared to deliver information and intelligence around patents are often different in terms of their features and capabilities. How do you know what features to look for in a solution that would help your organization? Here is a brief overview of the various important features found in most comprehensive patent data analysis tools and what components to look out for during the evaluation process.

Search Capabilities

In most cases the search has already been done on a database, so why would you want search in an analysis solution? Searching is usually a requirement for custom portfolio categorization and further its critical when conducting deeper analysis such as infringement or FTO. Even when looking at a chart, its important to be able to immediately drill-down from the chart and search through the segmented portion to get to the answer or insight you seek. Finally, many a time you have your custom fields such as Docket Ids, tags, comments etc associated with each record and you would like to include these in your search.

Patent Text Mining functions

When working with sets of 10000 records or more if you want to quickly understand what locate topics of interest or sometimes even understand which topics are prominent across the set and what sub-topics they are associated with, a powerful tunable auto-categorization engine is a must.Solutions that are created specifically for mining and clustering patent text are better suited than more general text mining solutions. Generating keyword lists and using such list for statistical analysis is another popular method used to gain insights on trends across companies, inventors and their patents.

Analytics Capabilities

Some of the capabilities that should be covered are co-occurrence matrices, generating top 10/20/50 lists and citation analytics. Together they help analyze relationships and spot trends within a certain space and lifecycles of technologies and more. Drilling-down to the actual patents from any of the functions is key. It’s always good to get a few analytics questions that your organization has, tested and verified using the analytics capabilities so that you are sure if the solution is up to the task of handling your patent intelligence needs.

Charting and Visualization

Converting the results from patent analysis into a powerful visual or graphical representation with ease is a definite must. In many cases exporting visuals to image files is critical so that they can be reused in your reports or power-points. A good visualization and reporting component helps convey the insight easily without any need for explanation. Powerful visuals necessitate actions from the information consumers typically senior management and result in swift decision making.

Reporting

Generating different styles of reports to suit varying needs across an organization is perhaps the most common activity. Support for a wide range of flexible report types is useful with output format as word or excel so that the user can modify the report as per needs after it has been generated.

User Interface & Ease of Use

There is always a fine balance between having a feature loaded analytics software tools packed to the brim with options and one that is easy to use even for someone with relatively little experience of patent information. A good solution in this respect is one that has a relatively easy to use user interface which one can get familiar with in a short time and at the same time have the flexibility and options to allow the user to customize features, options and the environment that they will be working with regularly when any patent analysis has to be done. A very easy to use interface may not always give you that flexibility and range of customization while an extremely complex interface may defeat the purpose and make the process of analyzing data more tedious rather than easier. Look out for an interface which gives you both ease of use along with flexibility of options.

Apart from the above some of the other capabilities to look for are data export features, associating your own custom fields with patent data, rating or scoring system and performance at 10000+ record levels.

Is The Patent Research & Analysis Process Overwhelming Your Organization?

Muthu Ramalingam — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:54:00 GMT

A common challenge we have seen across organizations who have access to reliable IP information and intelligence from various patent databases but find it overwhelming to integrate, manage large volumes of patent data, organise various ongoing research and investigation projects and to quickly locate answers to their questions. The solution to this lies in having a comprehensive patent research and analysis platform which can make it most of your activities much simpler. Here is a 60 second Slideshare presentation which highlights this challenge. Be sure to catch the link to our 7 minute webcast video at the end of this presentation!

Is The Patent Research & Analysis Process Overwhelming Your Organization?