Tracking Competitors Using Patent Monitoring

Tracking Competitors Using Patent Monitoring: Patent monitoring is a process in which technology, proprietorship, legal status, and market trends related to competitors’ patents are regularly monitored. It is done to identify who is working on what and in which jurisdiction in the technological domain of interest. This helps in identifying threats and opportunities at an early stage.

In today’s technologically advancing world, companies are focusing on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protections such as patents to develop products and generate revenue from them. However, to remain competitive in the market, it is essential to look outside the shell. In order to stay updated and to carry out further innovation based on a broader view, the importance lies in tracking competitors, specifically their IP, for the purpose of generating profits by implementing targeted business strategies.

Patent monitoring can be performed in a variety of ways, with the main focus being on a particular technology or company that may be a competitor.

Company-based Patent Monitoring

Assignees actively working in the domain, including competitors, are extracted and standardized based on multiple subsidiaries for company-based patent monitoring. Important patents are also extracted from any database based on assignees.

Technology-based Patent Monitoring 

To extract key patents from patent monitoring, the technology of interest is first comprehended to recognize key concepts. Thereon, search strings are created using keywords and classes.

Considering either company-based or patent monitoring based on technology, the preceding step will generate a set of patents that are further screened based on the taxonomy nodes. It is prepared as per the key technological concepts and further classified to generate the report along with bibliographic information. The above search should be performed on a routine basis (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly). It is done to keep a check on any recent updates to the patents already included in the list. Updates can include changes in legal status, examination status, litigation status, etc., or any new publication in the domain or by the company of interest, and can be used to highlight the same in the report.

The periodic process can be carried out manually. Since the number of patent filings is increasing on a regular basis, manually checking the competitor’s IP will be ineffective. Thus, a patent service with an automatic alerting system is required whenever anything new is initiated in the technology domain. For instance, the arrival of a brand-new update from a specific company for which the initial search was conducted.

Conclusion

To reap these benefits from patent monitoring, information about patent filings must be updated on a regular basis. Any lag in this information could lead to massive losses.

Leveraging the power of AI

Today’s AI-powered patent analytics tools, like XLSCOUT, leverage explainable AI-based technologies to help businesses discover relevant technical information quickly. With XLSCOUT, it is ever so easier now to compare and analyze technology trends over time. With easy access to graphical dashboards and insightful landscape reports, you can now view and compare the latest trends in a particular technology and identify the changes in competitor strategies.