Network Patent Analytics

Transcription

1 Network Patent Showing Erostrud dionsed you which mincil patents iriuscilit really aliquisl. matter

2 Network Patent Network Patent is a unique and powerful method for showing technology and IP ownership landscapes in an industry using patent data. Griffith Hack is the exclusive Australian licensee of Network Patent method developed by Optimice. We believe this is the world s most advanced method for Patent. This brochure will explain how Network Patent works, and how it can be applied to your business, research organisation or investment decision. Why Patent? Patent is the art and process of using the world s patent literature to inform and guide business and innovation decisions at strategic level. The world s patent literature contains over 2 million published patents, and 1. million new patents are published every year. Patent data is one of the most valuable and reliable sources of information on innovation and technology. Patents are filed by a wide range of parties ranging from large companies to research organizations, small companies and individuals. Public domain and commercial databases are available to aggregate and search this data, and many databases provide English language summaries of non-english patent applications. Over six million patents are in force and can affect freedom to operate for many innovators, especially for products or services sold in major overseas markets. Patent literature can provide legally robust information on the ownership of key technology areas, and associated data can be used to determine how important individual patents are within these areas. This information is of value to the owners of these patents, their competitors, and for parties wishing to operate in a given technology area. What data is available in patent publications and patent databases? A patent publication is a description of a claimed invention. In addition, patent applications contain other useful information such as the patent owner, the inventors, the type of technology, and the date of invention. Many granted patents and some patent applications also contain information on patent citations, which are previously published patents that are thought by either the patent applicant or patent examiners to disclose relevant aspects of the claimed invention. A subject patent will reference previously published patents, known as reverse or backward citations. In addition, subject patents will be referenced by subsequently published patents, known as forward citations, Figure 1. Many patent databases contain information on patent families, which are groups of related patent applications for the same or a similar invention. Figure 1. Forward and reverse citations Reverse or backward citations Subject patent Forward citations Patents considered important or relevant by subject patent Patents which consider the subject patent to be important or relevant

3 The value of forward patent citation data Subjective valuation through human analysis is considered to be an effective means of assessing the value of a patent. However subjective evaluation is impractical for more than a handful of patents. Instead it can be efficient to rely on other people s views of patents to avoid having to make your own assessment of large numbers of patents. Forward citation data is an excellent source of information about other people s views of a given patent. If a patent applicant or patent examiner has cited an earlier patent, this reflects that they thought that the earlier patent disclosed something of relevance. For this reason, the number of forward citations is often used as an indicator of patent quality, either by itself or combined with other data such as the number of patent family members, the number of reverse citations, the number of authors, and other patent data. However there are a couple of limitations of using forward citation data by itself: Some forward citations are worth more than others. For example, a forward citation might come from a patent that has been commercialized and created billions of dollars in wealth. However relying on a simple count of forward citations will not show this. The end result from a forward citation count is merely a simple number. This number does not provide information on how the different patents relate to each other. Introducing Network Patent Network Patent is the process of using patent citation data to build an interconnected network. Patents in the centre of this network are thought to have more influence and hence be more important than patents at the edge of this network. Patent Network is a development of network analysis, which has been used to map relationships between politicians to find the most influential politicians, or to determine influential websites by considering its linkages. The structure of the resulting patent network can be used to show closely related groups of patents, their common areas of technologies, and who owns these patents. Statistical methods can be applied to rank the centrality, and hence the importance, of individual patents within this network. Other statistical methods can be used to rank the importance of patent owners, inventors, technology classes and so on within this network. Figure 2 shows a schematic of a network of 5 patents. Figure 2. Network of 5 patents. The most influential patents sit in the centre of this network, and the least influential patents at the edge Much less important patent Most important patents

4 Network Patent Benefits of Network Patent over alternative patent analysis methods include: Objectively ranking patents, patent owners, inventors or any other subset Network Patent can rank and place a relative value on either individual patents, or groups of patents such as by patent owner, inventor, technology etc. Ability to identify and include missed patents Network Patent can identify important patents that were missed in the original patent search, but have been cited by patents in this search. These cited patents are treated the same as other patents in the subsequent analysis. This is helpful as patent searching can be imperfect due to patent searching being limited by errors in patent classification and keywords used in patent abstracts and titles. Including patents cited by patents in the initial search improves the final analysis. Patent and technology clustering Network Patent can separate the result of patent searches into different technology clusters, where there is a very strong relationship between patents within a cluster, and very little or no relationship between patents across clusters. These clusters can show different approaches used to solve a particular problem. Ability to handle large numbers of patents Network Patent can handle very large patent data sets, of up to 1, patents or more. Rather than being confused by large patent data sets, Network Patent uses the complexity of these large datasets to come up with more robust results. Flexibility Network Patent can be extended using other network information such as: common patent families, inventors, patent owners, keywords, or other linkages. Network Patent was developed by Optimice, a commercial partner of Griffith Hack. Griffith Hack is the exclusive Australian licensee of the Optimice Network Patent Analysis, and is applying its knowledge of patent searching and patent analysis to introduce this advanced technique into Australia and other regions. Network Patent has been previously applied to stem cell patents, where it was able to show technology structures in key stem cell patents, Figure 3. These results were recently published by Nature Biotechnology. More recently Network Patent has been used by Griffith Hack in conjunction with Optimice to show technology structures and key patents and patent owners in the hybrid car area. Among other findings, Network Patent was able to successfully predict a patent infringement issue. Figure 3. Technology structures in Stem Cell patents: Cluster Non-human Stem Cells Cluster 3 Embryonic-like Stem Cells US552 US155 Cluster 1 Hematopoitic Stem Cells WO33 US1 1 US5 US32 US25 US12 US1 US1 US5 US52 US551 US5351 US533 US52 US312 US55 US US555 US213 US5131 US231 US21 US53 US33 US321 US511 US5 US122 US35335 US2 US3532 US5 US22 US2 US15 US525 US52 US13 US31 US3 EP215 US551 US5221 US513 US55122 WO2 WO3325 WO121 US35 US551 US511 US52 US535 US13 US15 US515 US511 US53352 US5 US231 US322 US5 US5221 US532 US5 US US331 US551 US311 US5 US53351 US52225 US51 US51 US55 US155 US511 US3 US5525 US52512 US5153 US33312 US52 US5 US525 US51225 US23 US312 US1 Cluster Embryonic Stem Cells US25333 US53 WO332 US532 US213 US55335 US255 US211 US531 WO33 US52 US523 5 US515 US512 US531 US55125 US332 US3115 US2 US331US155 US153 US553 US153 US331 US3 US1 US512 US255 US521 US21 US22 US53 US5255 US5522 US5351 US5353 US EP31 US22 US5353 US53 US3 US52 US52 US53151 US5251 US2 US53 EP355 US511 US5 WO15 US3221 US5531 US51511 US55 US253 US22 US5 US52 US1 US12 US31 US355 US5513 US533 US512 US5352 US52 US53 US15 US2 US551 US3531US215 US525 US52 US555 US123 US3 US33 US21 US5213 US535 WO2 Cluster 2 Culturing Hematopoitic Stem Cells US5533 US535 US5235 US5252 US522 US5553 US55WO31 US2155 US11 US31 US1 US153 US1 WO5 WO13 WO123 US5335 WO32 WO1111 US1515 US3312 US53 WO532 EP2333 WO1122 US52 US35 WO11 WO53 US55 US3 US3 US511 US25155 US51213 US WO WO1235 US3 WO US552 US5213 US522 US25 US52 US3WO5212 US51312 US533 US133 US1153 US5115 WO11 US1 US5 WO32 2 US351 US232 WO3125 US55132 US5535US52 US52 US11 US5113 US US523 US US553 US1353 US33 US US51255 WO1522 US233 US1 US2 US23 WO13 US2511 US13 US US5 US553 US531 US US2 US US532 US55 US2515 US52 US111 US1 US21 US332 US11 US5155 US3123 US52111 US EP12 WO222 GB US US the larger the patent, the more important it is Cluster 5 Neural Stem Cells WO US5225 US5512

5 Commercial applications of Network Patent Commercial applications of Network Patent include: Objectively determining which patents, companies, technology types and inventors are most important in a particular area of technology Assessing the technology and ownership structure of a given technology area Determining unexpected infringement risks Assessing the overall quality of patent portfolios as an aid to acquisition, fund raising and disposal of patents and patent owning businesses Determining the highly and lowly rated patents in individual patent portfolios, assisting patent management decisions Identifying orphaned technologies, these are patents that are considered non-strategic by their owners, but which are rated and may be valuable to other parties Assessing the quality of your competitor s patents and patent portfolios IP due diligence prior to new investment or research in technology areas Commercial process for application of Network Patent The following process is a sample template for the commercial application of Network Patent : 1. The client and Griffith Hack will carefully define the problem to be solved by Network Patent 2. Griffith Hack will: a) develop a patent search query to collect the patent data likely to be important to solve the defined problem; b) run the patent search query to collect patent data from relevant databases, including patent numbers, owners, titles, abstracts and relevant patent citation data; c) group patents into families, including combining patent citation data; d) work with Optimice to apply Network Patent to look for dominant technology clusters, patents, technologies and applicants in the patent data; e) prepare spreadsheets of patent families in ranked order, including ancillary information such as patent numbers, owners, titles, abstracts and relevant patent citation data; f) prepare draft report that applies the result of Network Patent to the problem to be solved. 3. Griffith Hack will meet with the client to ensure that the draft report has met the client s needs.. Griffith Hack will prepare the final report, along with spreadsheet of ranked patents, and then meet with client to determine if any followup is required, such as detailed infringement analysis for identified infringement risks. The exact process to be used would depend on the specific requirements of each client engagement, and will be agreed with each client in advance of each engagement. Contact Melbourne Mike Lloyd mike.lloyd@griffithhack.com.au (3) Sydney George Mokdsi george.mokdsi@griffithhack.com.au (2) Brisbane Brendan Nugent, Principal brendan.nugent@griffithhack.com.au () Perth Tony Mizzi, Principal tony.mizzi@griffithhack.com.au () GH 53 Sept