Singhwal offers Patent Landscape and White Space Analysis which is also known as Technology Landscaping. Landscape Analysis involves giving our clients a complete overview based on a very unique and valuable perspective on any specific technology and its commercial interests. Patent landscape provides complete overview of the available opportunities and potential threat to us. It helps to decide product/ technology strategy at the early stage of development. A business team uses the patent landscape report to strategize the business, the R&D team uses the report to look for any opportunities to develop a new product or technology and IP team uses the report to find out non-infringing strategy, possible potential litigation and the cost associated with it and new patentable opportunities etc.
A Technology Landscape requires specific skills in order to identify relevant information which may differ from technology to technology and from client to client. Our Landscaping Team has several hours of experience and in an array of subject domains such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, electronics, telecommunication, civil, metallurgy, computer science, IT, Software, Aeronautical, etc. Our team uses specific strategies to bring out the best landscape reports. Our expert team hand- holds with our client in order to understand their purpose of preparing patent landscape. Once the purpose is identified then our team strategize the patent search in order to get entire relevant patent of the particular product or technology.
The patent landscape used to track how the patent portfolio of a particular product or technology has evolved over the years. This helps R&D and IP department to focus on further development and patenting activity associated with it. It provides a clear picture that an importance of IP to the client’s company to sustain the business. Importantly, it helps to identify the key competitors in the subject domain and their patent portfolio and patent strength.
R&D strategy can be developed using patent information and competitor’s activities. Having a comprehensive patent landscape, which include all the components/ process/ methods required for the product or technology to commercialise/ development, the client can easily identify potential partners for collaborative work. In addition, if the patent portfolio of the competitor of the particular product is strong then the client can look for in-licensing the patent/ technology thereby to have a win- win situation to both the client and the patentee.
The patent landscape also helps the client to identity potential partners to out-license their IP/ patent. Hence, the client would be beneficial once the patented invention reaches a commercial stage. Also, the patent landscape helps to identify potential company for merger and acquisition. The rival companies may file a patent application in specific countries only rather across all countries due to the nature of the invention and its commercial requirement. Hence, the client uses the patent landscape to understand their product’s sales region.
The report must be prepared by focusing the goal/purpose of the report. There will be huge list of patent and patent applications retried during the search. Hence, the report must be prepared by bucketing the patent and patent applications and categorization them according to different parts of the product/ technology. The patent and patent applications can be classified according to their international patent classification (IPC) code and national patent classification code. Once the patent list is segregated according to the classification then it can be arranged according to the aspects of the product. For example, if a client wants a patent landscape for a pharmaceutical product then the patent landscape can contain different types of the patent related to the pharmaceutical product. The types include product patent, process for preparation of that drug substance, polymorph of the drug substance, formulation of the drug product and formulation preparation process of the drug product, method of using the drug. Hence, the client can easily focus on area in which he needs information or wants to work on.
In brief, a landscape report covers an overview of patent activity in a field of technology. Some of the main aspects covered by our team include identifying the right subject domain of interest, analyzing the patent portfolios of relevant competitors, analyzing patent portfolios of relevant companies, the competitor’s geographical interest, identifying the partners for development, compiling the data and conducting a thorough competitive analysis.
The data generated by our team is always enormous, and we incorporate certain time tested strategies to identify the most relevant details. The process involves narrowing down to specific fields, identifying the functional and structural elements of the patents, segregating them based on the IPC classification and then analyzing the data keeping in mind the requirements of the landscape report.
The tools that our team use are highly advanced. We use industry best databases which includes both paid as well as non-paid databases. Free databases includes all patent office websites, general Google search, PCT website, innovator’s company website, their press release, SEC filing and stock market filing details. Our team also uses other organizational tools which help in sorting out the collected data in a uniform pattern in order to identify the relevant data. It is important to note that Landscape studies are quite challenging as the data collected is enormous and it takes a lot of expertise to bring out a good report.
It is recommended to include non-patent literature also in the patent literature report based on the purpose of preparing the report. The non-patent literature provides lot of technical insights. In case, the purpose of the landscape report is to understand/ find out non-infringing process or product then non-patent literature helps R&D and IP team to complete the task.
Patent landscape report has to updated and evaluated periodically. Because, the business team or R&D team or IP team have made a certain decisions based on active patent/ patent application at initial time. Over the period, the status of patent/ patent applications will change. Hence, the business, R&D and IP team has to revisit their strategies in view of the expired patent and patent applications to help the business to grow. In addition to landscape report, our team periodically updates our client about the status of the patent and patent application which are highly relevant to the client’s business strategy.
The reports generated are not always straightforward, and are not always specifically conclusive as the patent field has a lot of data that is not accessibility to the public at a given time. It is always important to keep in mind that a Landscape Analysis is specific to the time period at which the report was generated. Our team also encourages the clients to be extremely co-operative in order to get the best results out of the Landscape study.
Having a co-operative interaction between the user of the Landscape and the producer of the landscape report will help in giving the best understanding and best benefit for both sides. At Singhwal we also bring in subject specific consultants if required, in order to bring in specialized technical expertise for our reports. We at Singhwal also offer another type of domain specific analysis known as White-Space Analysis which is based on the Patent Landscape Analysis.
White space analysis provides insight into the gap which exists in the particular technology. The gap can be used for research and development thereby the client can come up with competing product having advantage over the competitor’s product. In general, there is no or little patenting activity is happened in white space and the particular technology drives the business by a way of innovation. Hence, white space analysis provides a complete insight into strategic product innovation and future potential areas for developments.Singhwal‘s white space analysis methodology involves four stages which are similar to the process involves during the patent landscape preparation. The first stage involves extraction of patent/ patent applications into the excel sheet. The second stage involves generating taxonomy of the patent. We classify the patent list using international patent classification (IPC) and national patent classification of the particular country the client is interested in. The third stage involves categorization of patent according to the patent taxonomy. The fourth stage involves analysis of the graphs to identify a least patented technology domain thereby to find out the white space.
Our experts use various methods to identify the white gap in the technology using the report prepared as mentioned above. Our experts identify the problems available/ identified in the prior art, solutions, which includes any alternate solutions, available in the literatures to solve the similar problems.
This type of analysis graphically shows the growth in a particular technology domain, and it also highlights the white spaces where further Research & Development can be done for new product development. Our detailed analysis report of the landscape benefits the client to locate future potential research areas. Our services will provide you viable solutions for all your innovation queries.
Our white space evaluation report contains detailed analysis of the list of patents in particular technology. Our report contains charts/ diagram showing how the specific technology is grown over the years and white- space area where the client can focus and work on. The white space provides an opportunity to the client to research and develop a new product or incremental innovation to the existing product thereby positioning them well ahead of their rival companies in terms of growth. Our team carefully evaluate the white space and files patent application as and when required. We provide end to end support to the client from identifying the white space to develop the product to filing a patent application to commercialisation of the product.
It is important to consider non-patent literature in addition to patent for evaluating the white space. This is because, in general, the patent publication would be available in the public domain after 18 months from the filing date. The patentee may publish his/ her invention in the journal soon after filing a patent application. Hence, the non-patent literature along with patent helps us to evaluate the complete technical disclosure of the relevant technology or product thereby we can identify white gap available for development.
It should be mentioned that all the identified white spaces in the particular technology is viable practically. Some of the white spaces may not be viable for commercial manufacturing, some are not viable for marketing and some are not viable to develop in particular geographies due to resource constraints. Our technical experts provides white gaps in a hierarchy manner and give detailed analysis about the feasibility of the identified white space by considering all aspects including the client’s capability. In addition, our technical experts periodically consult with customer throughout the product/ technology development cycle in order to facilitate the development process. If requires we do additional white gap analysis during the development activity. As mentioned above we periodically evaluate the product development process in order to identify any patentable opportunities and protect the same.
Be sure to come to us for any type of Landscape report be it Patent Landscape, Technology Landscape, White-Space Analysis, etc. Our experienced team closely interact with our clients to understand the purpose of preparing the patent landscape report thereby to provide comprehensive report covering all aspects of the purpose. Our team has rich experience in white space analysis and advice our clients on future development and patenting activities associated with it. Our report contains graphs and charts in order to serve the purpose of preparing the report. The technical expert team advices our clients about the viable white space from the list identified for further development rather than to work on all identified white spaces.