Staying ahead of competition requires staying ahead with innovation. One of the valuable and yet less maximized resources to acquire strategic intelligence is through patent information. Used with a fitting strategy, patent data can become a treasure chest of information to help identify actual competitors, discover the technology being promoted by actual competitors, and determine where the marketplace is headed.

When you file a patent, you're publicly disclosing your technology direction. Patent filings include data about non-obvious inventions that are useful and new. The filings have technical information, inventor names, and dates when it was filed and by whom rights belong to. By reviewing this data, you can identify patterns and trends and threats and opportunities that are hidden in your technology space.

Identification of Competitors using Patent Information

First, define technology scope by starting with a concise definition of your core technology fields. Use unique keywords, international patent classification (IPC/CPC) numbers, or key technical terms defining your innovation area. This narrow focus will help you filter out non-relevant patents and zoom in on the essentials. Make use of patent search databases like Google Patents, Espacenet (EPO), USPTO Patent Full-Text Database, Derwent Innovation, PatBase, and Orbit Intelligence wherein you can search using keywords, classifications, assignee (owner), inventor, etc. Once you pull out a dataset of relevant patents, filter the list by "assignee" the entity or individual who has the patent ownership. This list often reveals most active stakeholders within your industry. These are direct or indirect competitors of yours. Track filing trends over time with a growing number of filings may signal growing R&D spend or strategic move into a particular market segment. Backward and forward patent citation suggests technological dominance and interlinking. When a firm is continually citing your patents or patents within your domain, they're likely addressing similar challenges a sign of indirect competition/market convergence. Look for these out for startups, universities, or smaller firms that inexplicably start to file within your domain.

Conclusion

Turn data into strategy, patent information is not just legal papers it's a strategic tool. With the right software and mindset, you can use it to map the best of the competitive landscape, get clues on where others are investing, and make smarter decisions on your innovation journey.

Effectual Services is an award-winning Intellectual Property (IP) management advisory & consulting firm offering IP intelligence to Fortune 500 companies, law firms, research institutes and universities, and venture capital firms/PE firms, globally. Through research & intelligence we help our clients in taking critical business decisions backed with credible data sources, which in turn helps them achieve their organisational goals, foster innovation and achieve milestones within timelines while optimising costs.

We are one of the largest IP & business intelligence providers, globally serving clients for over a decade now. Our multidisciplinary teams of subject matter experts have deep knowledge of best practices across industries, are adept with benchmarking quality standards and use a combination of human and machine intellect to deliver quality projects. Having a global footprint in over 5 countries helps us to bridge boundaries and work seamlessly across multiple time zones, thus living to the core of our philosophy - Innovation is global, so are we !!!