Competitive intelligence is an important factor in business decision-making. When evaluating competitive intelligence insights, the sales, strategies, and market share of competitors are what come to mind.
However, patent landscaping analysis provides some of the least discussed but most frequently used insights by industry-leading companies around the world.
In this blog, we’ll go over the most important competitive intelligence insights you can get from patent filing analysis.
Five Key Competitive Intelligence Insights from Patent Landscaping Analysis
1. Recognizing When a Competitor Is Developing a New Product
Patents are the first conclusive evidence that your competitor is working on something novel. You can stay on top of what your competitors are working on by regularly monitoring their filings.
This allows you to determine whether or not you want to stay in this line of work.
If the innovations they are developing are close to your core IP, you can keep an eye on it to reduce the risk of infringement.
2. Examine Your Competitors’ Partnerships
Do your competitors collaborate with universities or other research organizations?
Are they collaborating with other companies?
Patent landscaping allows you to discover your competitor’s strategic alliances. This allows you to compare their alliances to yours to determine whether they are competitive enough. Consequently allowing you to decide whether you should seek new or additional partnerships.
3. Evaluate a competitor’s R&D efforts and strategic direction.
Patent Categorization allows you to see “clusters” of patents surrounding a specific technology or product area. The amount of patent filing in a specific area provide insight into competitors’ efforts and focus on that area.
This provides you with specific information about whether your competitors are giving up (or developing) a line of business. This knowledge is critical in determining whether their actions infringe on your technology or whether your company should pursue a new line of business.
4. Information on their R&D Investments
Knowing how patents have been filed can provide valuable insight into the amount of funding your competitor has provided for new technology. If the invention was filed by a private inventor with hardly any legal representation, it is likely that the patent is of low value. If, on the other hand, it was a PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) filing, you can conclude that the innovation is of significant value to your competitor.
5. Frequency of Litigation
Examining a patent’s legal history reveals how much effort your competitor has put into it. Strict prosecution shows that the company values this technology and is willing to go to great lengths to protect it. This information is required to determine how crucial the technology is to their lines of business.
If there is a lot of litigation enclosing the innovation, you can assume it is very important to the company. A lack of legal activity, on the other hand, may indicate that the patent has been abandoned or that its usefulness is no longer prioritized.
While there is so much information on your competitors that can be uncovered through IP analysis, it would be impossible to include it all in a single blog entry. These five areas are among the most commonly used intellectual property insights for competitive intelligence.
You’ll know your market’s playing field like the back of your hand if you keep a close eye on your patent landscape insights. By effectively utilizing this data, you will be able to predict your competitor’s next moves more accurately. Thus, allowing you to either beat them to it or cautiously observe them as they proceed.
Our Methodology
XLSCOUT provides you with a competitive dashboard where you can compare the portfolios of different competitors and extract different insights like their filing trends, top problems they are trying to solve, their technology investments, their collaborations, their core patents, etc. With just a few clicks, it creates a patent landscape report tailored to your needs.
