Patents are not
new, their presence was noted long back during 16th century. In U.S. at the Constitutional
Convention
of 1787, a federal patent power was proposed by James Madison and
Charles Pinckney and was adopted without debate as Article 1, Sec. 8, clause 8.
The history of
Patent Law began all the way back with the Constitution of the United States
which was specific about providing protection for those who invent new and
unique products. But after the TRIPS, intellectual property rights and patents
gained importance to the business communities and industries. The retrieval of
the patent information was made easy by internet and access to different patent
databases. Patent are the source of the technological innovation and detailed
mining of patent literature is proven to be useful of the Completive
Intelligence.
This article
attempts to analyze importance and methods for the patent data mining and their
future use in the
competitive intelligence. The key issues discussed in this
article are:
a)
Importance of the patent data mining;
b)
Using patent data for competitive intelligence.
Data Mining is a
process of discovering meaningful new correlations, patterns and trends by
sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories, using statistical,
data analysis and mathematical techniques.
Patents are the
most valuable and comprehensive source of the technological information and
thus are very crucial for the industries. A very strong patent
portfolio and
IPR system is needed for a industry to compete the global market. An
organization's patent portfolio forms a critical part of its IP holdings
alongside its designs, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Much of the
value from a portfolio can only be realized through its effective management. In
turn, that requires tools and techniques to help understand portfolio content, how
and where this fits in with the organization's competencies and what the market
opportunities are for exploiting the technology owned.
There is also a
need to identify gaps where complementary technology can be licensed in andidentify non-core technology where know-how can be licensed out or divested for
financial return. This is the province of patent mining. A clear and effective
IP strategy criticallyincorporates a clear and effective strategy for managing
an organization's patent portfolio. There are several free and paid patent
databases consisting of billions of the patent documents. The databases which
are free to search the patents are as follows: USPTO, EPO, JPO, SurfIP, SIP, Freshpatents,
Patentsonline, etc. Whereas different paid databases are PatentCafe, Delphion, Dialog,
Micropatent, etc. which also include inbuilt analysis tools.
The data
obtained from these patent documents can be used for the competitive
intelligence. It is defined as process of discovering "competitor's" strategic
decisions, or of business area characteristics, using quantitative analysis
techniques applied to data and information,obtained through legal process, regarding
the chosen competitor or business area.
These types of
searches are primarily done using the different patent database and are very
useful for competitive intelligence in the todays global prospective. Patent
analysis and mining in combination with market research and financial
assessment can build up a strong competitive environment for the competitors
for the industries.