Page 79 - A&A Patents&Design Rewind-2016

determine the intended scope of a Patent Analytics
study:
1) An analysis of the contributors to the
technical field à based primarily on assignees,
inventors, and bibliographic content.
2) An analysis of the contributions to the
technical field à based on the inventive
contributions made in the technical field.
Traditional “Patent Landscape Reports” limit
themselves to the first kind of perspective (the
“contributor” study) with little or no analysis of the
“contributions” made.
In the “contributor study” mode all the required
information is available from one or more of the
following “structured” sections of the individual
patent documents:
1) Bibliographic sections – comprising
priority data, publication details,
classification particulars, assignee
information, and inventor details.
2) Title
3) Abstract
4) Claims
5) Classifications
While this approach suffices to disclose information
that is useful for first-level evaluations for
commercial and very broad technical studies, it is
grossly inadequate for detailed investigation into the being addressed and the solutions being provided.
inventive content of the patent. The reasons for this
limitation arise from the following observations:
1) Very few patents divulge the nature of the
technical problem and/or the technical solution
(which forms the essence of any invention) in
the Title, Abstract or even the Claims à this
is a consequence of one or more of several
factors, including the desire to maximize
patent monopoly coverage, wide variation
in drafting styles, and sometimes even an
intentional camouflage of the problem/solution.
2) Classification data is inherently limited to the
predefined classes of the classification system
which suffer from the following limitations:
a) complete lack of coverage of the
“technical problem” perspective.
b) confusing overlaps between the coverage
of applicable technical components
which distorts the “technical solution”
perspective.
c) in several cases, the very broad coverage
of the predefined classes encompasses
several technical components which
are very diverse from the technical
components of interest thereby
introducing significant ambiguity.
d) each technical component of interest
falls under multiple classes which further
enhances ambiguity.
The above limitations are addressed by the second
perspective to a Patents Analytics study – that
of “contribution” to the art. To overcome the
limitations explained above, this form of analysis
investigates the entire text of each patent document,
with special focus on the sections that describe the
technical problem(s) being addressed as well as the
technical solution(s) being provided. The process is
significantly more complex than in the previous case.
The most effective form of Patent Analytics results
from the implementation of both perspectives. The
result is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of
patenting activity in the selected technical field,
covering both contributors and contributions
made by them -- including technical problems
The information revealed by such a study enables
a thorough understanding of entire information
relating to patent related innovation in the
selected technical field. A robust, inter-active Data
Visualization capability that provides access to a
multitude of diverse “views” that can be invoked
on an “as-needed” basis. Each “view” comprises
an independent study that can be generated by the
user independently as and when desired – covering
more than the finding from a large collection of
the traditional Landscape Reports. This capability
of investigating different aspects of the innovation
activities makes available a powerful facility
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