Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in patentvinod's LiveJournal:

Monday, May 22nd, 2006
11:47 am	Preparation of Claim Chart First, circle the independent claims, which will illustrate here with parentheses, e.g., (1) means claim 1 is independent (it always is, BTW). Second, use an arrow after a dependent claim to show what claim it is dependent from. Third, use the PTO check mark and equal signs (from the file wrapper claim chart format) to indicate rejected or allowed claims. "=" means allowed, "./" (the closest can get to a check mark here) means rejected. Fourth, draw the claim chart veritcally on the inside of the file wrapper (in the margin) – this way you get a road map of the claims during reviewing the case. Miscellaneous notations might be added to remind you about the scope of the claims or other notes. e.g., "A" for apparatus, "M" for method, "o" for objected to, etc. Example: A ten claim case with 3 independent claims might have a chart like this: A (1) ./ 2 -> 1 = 3 -> 1 ./ 4 -> 3 = M (5) = 6 -> 5 = 7 -> 6 = A (8) ./ 9 -> 8 o 10 -> 9 o In day-to-day analysis of claims, people use the this type of claim tree as a way to visualize the analysis especially for complex claim structures. For example, in an application with 100+ claims and an extended prosecution history (e.g., with many canceled, revised, and newly added claims), a visual depiction of the dependency structure of the claims (e.g. using a tree structure similar to Windows Explorer) can be invaluable. Some people take a further step of annotating the tree structure to reflect the content of the claim and any references cited against the claim. Another approach for making claim chart is a two-column table in every legitimate patent infringement analysis. In the left column are each and every limitation of the patented invention. In the right column is either a "yes" or "no" answer as to whether that limitation is present in the accused device or method. For example, an accused device and a claim chart are presented below: Robert's validity chart is not only useful for 102 analyses, but also 103 analyses, particularly the combining references type. Consider Claim 1 Reference 'A’ Reference ‘B’ A widget apparatus, comprising: 1) a frobosinator, 2) a pixilator, and 3) a green cogscreen Widget apparatus: Yes (col 1, line 10) Yes (col 1, line 12) No (but there is a blue cogscreen at col 7, line 10) Widget subassembly No. No. Yes (col 9, line 12) This chart supports a rejection of claim 1 as obvious over ‘A’ in view of 'B’. The most useful automating tool that I have found is the shareware program that takes a draft specification and produces reports of the numbered items referred to in the claims and produces reports with respect to the same. It saves time in producing a Sec. 112 check. For the most part, I have found analysis of claims not to be terribly difficult to do with human eyeball, but can see massive problems in trying to do them automatically, making it a project unsuitable for automation, because the cost/benefit ratio seems unfavorable. On the other hand, while this is certainly true for novelty searches, where you compare the claims of your application with the teachings of the prior art, where you pretty much ignore the claims, it may not be so true for a validity search, where you compare the claims of many patents with the accused device. (Comment on this)
11:45 am	Patent Mapping a Process of Knowledge Extraction Today Intellectual property is universally recognized as the engine that drives advances in all technology related disciplines. A better understanding of how to develop, utilize and leverage IP is essential for all industries and professionals involved in various fields of technology. A better insight of the patenting activity reveals a more objective approach to determining how to prioritize research and development projects based on newly developed patent mapping and valuation techniques using state of the art software. Research-based firms continuously seek to discover new ideas and new technologies and to translate these into unique products that can be protected from competition by patents or other intellectual property rights. This requires a solid knowledge of the market and the trends in the market; who are your competitors and who are potentially your partners? Intellectual property is finally being universally recognized as the engine that drives advances in all technology related disciplines. A better understanding of how to develop, utilize and leverage IP is essential for all professionals involved in various fields of technology. This is where a patent map will help you. Mapping the patent landscape will give you an overview of and insight into patent clusters and other relevant patent data, including relationships among the data points in the patent map. A map will also increase your potential for developing new technologies that can be patented and that will reinforce existing markets or secure new market shares. Patent map provides graphical representations, allowing for comprehensive analysis with ability to link to more detailed text when needed. 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 an 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 and identify 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 critically incorporates a clear and effective strategy for managing an organization’s patent portfolio. A lot of valuable information is now available of the industries in different databases in the web. Among all those patents the most important and easily available. Patent searching can give insights into the state of the art across any technical field. It can provide a platform to monitor the competitors activities by revealing which companies are involved in a field of technology of your interest. Patent searching data can also reveal the technological road map to a particular invention, the science or logic behind the invention, and its intended application. The data obtained form 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. However the legal nature of patents makes them an uncompromisingly formal style. They are written in a language sometimes so abstruse that it does more to obscure the nature of the invention than to elucidate it. Also the millions of patents exited are distributed across different databases and in each case coded and grouped according to one of several classification systems. The family patent information is also varied from various databases. The skilled patent search requires in-depth knowledge of an array of software tools, search commands, searching techniques and classification systems. That’s why patent searching is an expert's job. In the recent few years the demand for a professional patent searcher has increased. 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, Delphion, Dialog, Micopat, etc. which also include inbuilt analysis tools. Main benefits of free-access Web databases are that they provide a low-cost means of doing initial background searches. The problem is that they suffer serious drawbacks for more crucial searches. For example: free databases generally come from the patent issuing authorities (usually national patent offices) so their content is restricted to those patents granted by that particular authority. There is no universal structure, so the same fields may not necessarily be searchable across different databases. There is no 'added value' - such as readable abstracts in plain English, which has given patent information-provider Thomson Derwent its enviable reputation. There are rarely any patent analysis technologies. And they do not provide the option of sophisticated, command driven, Boolean searches as offered by powerful tools from host companies such as Dialog, Delphion, Questel-Orbit, MicoPat and STN - which also allow parallel searches across several (commercial and free) databases at once. How to perform patent mapping, art searches and why they are important. There are two broad categories in patent mapping, namely data mining and text mining. Data mining involves the extraction of fielded data and the analysis Journal of Patent and Trademark Office Society, Volume 88, No. 12, December 2005 thereof. Mining or mapping this information can provide someone an idea of who are the major players in the relevant technological field, and that type of work they are generally focusing on. Patent maps are designed based on basically three types: • Manual Maps- which are generally Computer Generated Maps; • Data Mining- It includes temporal analysis of the patent data and arrange the extracted data as a Co-occurancy Matrix from structured/fielded data; • Text Mining- Involved Concept Mapping and Concept Clustering. 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. Measurement of Emerging Technology Patent ‘mapping’ and ‘landscaping’ are useful heuristic and presentation tools –they involve making key-word based comparisons between the identified set of patents. Comparative analysis produces output in the form of a contour 'map’ whose XY dimensions are derived by term-frequency comparison and clustering of patents with similar keywords. The map thus portrays a quasi 3-dimensional representation of the multidimensional 'net' of the pair wise links between the patents. An IP portfolio is thus shown as a series of technology 'peaks' and ‘valleys’ containing more or fewer patents that are closely related to one another in the overall patent landscape. Patent mapping is an interdisciplinary skill that involves understanding of the sciences, being able to uncover the business opportunities and requires an understanding of patent law. As competitive tools, patents are merging followed by being mapped to potentially: • Gain patent-protected entry into lucrative but contested markets; • Acquire exclusive rights to emerging market-leading technologies; • Increase R&D effectiveness and avoid potential infringement. Patent intelligence is a unique public source of information used to study technological changes and advancement to a particular technological area. Companies often use patent information either as a current awareness tool or as more quantitative pattern analysis used in conjunction with other technology intelligence methods. It is the process of examining large number of patents, quantifying key aspects and identifying patterns and trends in the data. A patent company scarifies the secrecy of the invention by publishing complete technical documentation of its features in exchange for legal protection (i.e., a patent) from pestilential copiers. Patents are distinguished from other scientific publications in that they signify perceived economic potential. Careful study of patent information is advantageous, because the information generally appears before a new product is introduced, making it possible to track and provide an early warning of a competitor's R&D plans. Patents are the most current innovation intelligence available on new technologies. Patent analysis should be considered a critical component of a company's CI program if the core competency of the firm is an innovative R&D program. Bibliometric analysis represents a cost-effective means to critically track innovation progress, and can provide a solid basis to gauge a technology when the information is combined with expert opinion. By combining bibliometric with other intelligence information, CI practitioners can spot competitive threads, uncover relationships between technologies and key players, and identify emerging trends. Conclusion Patent informations are like gold mines and making the best use of it is a challenge. In order to extract valuable information from these patent databases, there is essentially a need for a systematic method known as patent mapping so as to build a navigational knowledge base for technology and business intelligence. The technique of patent mapping can be engaged in all functional groups across an enterprise. R&D group, for example requires patent information to validate innovations, make decisions about buying or make-in-house technologies, and better understand competitors’ plan. Legal group seeks information to pursue patent infringement litigation or protect the enterprise’s interest from infringement. Finance group seeks patent information to identify revenue-generating licensing opportunities. Human resource group uses this information from patents to identify leading scientists and engineers for strategic recruitment purposes. . By studying patents, managers can gain a measure of foresight as to where R&D time should be focused and directed. In general patent analysis involves extracting data from a patent document literature and analyzing these data by different criteria. The type of map that is created depends upon the question that is trying to be answered. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
11:43 am	Patent Technology Indicators Patent are the most valuable form of information available for competivie analysis. Different indicator are being used to predict the value of a patent or any company's strength. Tech-Line® uses three standard patent indicators and six advanced citation indicators invented by CHI to analyze corporate technological strength. All indicators are calculated for particular companies, in specific technologies over a time period. Because patent citation rates differ by technology, comparisons should be made only within similar technology groups. Basic Indicators * Number of patents * Patent growth percent in area * Percent of company patents in area Patent Citation Indicators * Cites per patent * Current impact index (CII) * Technology strength (TS) * Technology cycle time (TCT) Science Linkage Indicators * Science Linkage (SL) * Science Strength (SS) Basic Indicators Tech-Line uses three indicators based on patent counts: Number of Patents - A count of a company's patents issued in the U.S. patent system. Because the U.S. is such a large market, even non-US companies seek the protection of a U.S. patent for their most important innovations. By tracking number of patents, growth in patenting and distribution across technology areas, you can monitor and compare the evolution of companies' R&D activity by technology area. Number of patents tracks R&D spending but can be disaggregated across technologies whereas R&D spending usually cannot. Patent Growth Percent in Area - The change in the number of patents from one time period to another, expressed as a percentage. This identifies technologies receiving increasing emphasis and those in which innovation is slackening off. It also identifies companies increasing their technological development, and those whose R&D is played out. Percent of Company Patents in Area - The number of patents in a technology area divided by the total number of patents for that company, expressed as a percentage. This tells you which technologies form the core of a company's intellectual property portfolio. Patent Citation Indicators Four Tech-Line indicators are derived by analyzing the references on the front pages of patents, or "patent citations." References are placed on patents to help establish the novelty of the invention. Inventions must be novel to be awarded a patent. To enable the patent office examiner to assess the novelty of the invention, a patent document lists "prior art" in the form of references to previous patents in the same area. Patent citations also play an important role in patent infringement litigation by delineating the domain of the patent. In counting citations, we reverse the perspective and count how many citations a patent receives from subsequent patents. This is a way of counting how many times a patent becomes prior art in future technological advances. Research has established that highly cited patents represent economically and technically important inventions. Details on the history and validity of patent citation analysis are in the Tech-Line background paper. Cites Per Patent- A count of the citations received by a company's patents from subsequent patents. This allows you to assess the technological impact of patents. High citation counts are often associated with important inventions, ones that are fundamental to future inventions. Companies with highly cited patents may be more advanced than their competitors, and have more valuable patent portfolios. Current Impact Index (CII) - The number of times a company's previous five years of patents are cited in the current year, relative to all patents in the U.S. patent system. Indicates patent portfolio quality. A value of 1.0 represents average citation frequency; a value of 2.0 represents twice average citation frequency; and 0.25 represents 25% of average citation frequency. In a Tech-Line company report, you can identify the technologies in which companies produce their best work. In a Tech-Line technology report you can benchmark a company's technological quality against other companies and against the average for the technology. (CII's vary by technology. For example, they are high in semiconductors, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, and low in glass, clay & cement, and textiles.) CII has been found to be predictive of a company's stock market performance. Technology Strength (TS) - Quality-weighted portfolio size, defined as the number of patents multiplied by current impact index. Using Technology Strength you may find that although one company has more patents, a second may be technologically more powerful because its patents are of better quality. Technology Cycle Time (TCT) - Indicates speed of innovation or how fast the technology is turning over, defined as the median age in years of the U.S. patent references cited on the front page of the company's patents. Companies with shorter cycle times than their competitors are advancing more quickly from prior technology to current technology. In semiconductors, cycle times are short (3-4 years); in shipbuilding they are long (more than 10 years). The average is 8 years. In fast moving technologies, TCT allows you to identify companies that may gain the advantage by innovating more quickly. Science Linkage Indicators Two Tech-Line indicators are derived by analyzing the front page of patents. Patent documents must cite relevant prior art (see patent citation). Increasingly, patents are citing non-patent documents as prior art, and many of these are papers in scientific journals. Tech-Line's Science Linkage and Science Strength indicators are based on counts of patent references to scientific papers. Patents that reference many scientific journal articles are different from patents that reference none. For example, a patent on a genetically engineered seed, or on a neural network based process control may reference 10 or more scientific articles. In contrast, an improved design for a part of a motor may reference none. Tech-Line's indicators build on this difference, differentiating companies and technologies that are high-tech from those that are not. This is particularly useful in areas like agriculture, where patents for plows are mixed in with advanced agrobiotechnology. Science Linkage can differentiate between the two. Science Linkage (SL) - The average number of science references cited on the front page of the company's patents. High science linkage indicates that a company is building its technology based on advances in science. High-tech companies tend to have higher science linkage than their competitors. Science Linkage enables you to pick out the high-tech players in even traditional areas such as agriculture or textiles. Science Linkage has been found to be predictive of a company's stock market performance. Science Strength (SS) - The number of patents multiplied by science linkage. Indicates the total amount of a company's science linkage activity. Science strength reminds us that although a small biotech firm may use science very intensively, a big pharmaceutical firm in fact has a greater reliance on science because it makes use of research across a much larger R&D effort (Comment on this)
11:20 am	Patent Searching an Effective Tool for Competitive Intelligence A lot of valuable information is now available of the industries in different databases in the web. Among all those patents the most important and easily available. Patent searching can give insights into the state of the art across any technical field. It can provide a platform to monitor the competitors activities by revealing which companies are involved in a field of technology of your interest. Patent searching data can also reveal the technological road map to a particular invention, the science or logic behind the invention, and its intended application. However the legal nature of patents makes them an uncompromisingly formal style. They are written in a language sometimes so abstruse that it does more to obscure the nature of the invention than to elucidate it. Also the millions of patents exited are distributed across different databases and in each case coded and grouped according to one of several classification systems. The family patent information is also varied from various databases. The skilled patent search requires in-depth knowledge of an array of software tools, search commands, searching techniques and classification systems. That’s why patent searching is an expert's job. In the recent few years the demand for a professional patent searcher has increased. Main benefits of free-access Web databases are that they provide a low-cost means of doing initial background searches. The problem is that they suffer serious drawbacks for more crucial searches. For example: free databases generally come from the patent issuing authorities (usually national patent offices) so their content is restricted to those patents granted by that particular authority. There is no universal structure, so the same fields may not necessarily be searchable across different databases. There is no 'added value' - such as readable abstracts in plain English, which has given patent information-provider Thomson Derwent its enviable reputation. There are rarely any patent analysis technologies. And they do not provide the option of sophisticated, command driven, Boolean searches as offered by powerful tools from host companies such as Dialog, Delphion, Questel-Orbit, MicoPat and STN - which also allow parallel searches across several (commercial and free) databases at once. More importantly, a quick and easy search on a free site is extremely unlikely to uncover 'stealth patents' or “hidden patents”- one of the latest IP protection tricks. The authors of these patents deliberately choose obfuscating keywords and try to have their patents inappropriately classified in order that others' searches do not throw them up. Whereas commercial patent database providers provide access to patent collections throughout the world, along with value-added patent information, various analytical tools and other technologies. A number of these commercial providers have recently released innovative new functionalities alongside the search function Why Conduct a Patent Search? A. Patent searches are conducted for many purposes. Among them are to: 1. Determine if a particular invention is unique 2. Identify potential features for new product 3. Identify other possible uses for a new product 4. Determine independent inventors or companies currently or historically obtaining patents in a particular area 5. Find the patent(s) for a particular invention 6. Determine the state of the art in a particular area 7. Identify patents in a specific field for generating citation maps (a tool in determining the relative importance/value of a specific invention 8. Study the rate of innovation in a particular area 9. Determine the patent portfolio of a specific company 10. Determine if an invention infringes upon the intellectual property rights of others 11. Learn about an industry or a specific company 12. Search for potential solutions to design or safety problems 13. Identify potential licensees 14. To identify additional reference materials (journal articles, books, product literature) of use to those working in this area. Patents often list printed reference materials. 15. Identify inventors working in a certain field. Patent search Procedure: A. The Steps 1. Search the web to get the up to date information about the area of work and select the specific keywords describing the area of interest and identify the control patents. To start with by searching for any specific patents be aware of in this area, patents of companies work in this field, patents invented by inventors in this field, etc. This step is called “shoot from the tip”. 2. Try a few relevant words in the word search engine and see what turns up. If turned up any patents in the "shoot from the hip" step above, examine them for possible search words. Record the search words on a page in a project notebook and add other words as they come to mind or encounter them in other patents. Usually the word list becomes separated into groups of words covering different aspects of the invention. 3. Access the Classification Index. In paper it is about the size of a small town phone book. Look up your topic and you will find a class number. The area you are interested in may have several class numbers (for example marine propulsion and propellers (impellers) are in two different classes). 4. Access the Manual of Classification (in paper it is a large 3 volume set of ring binders). Turn to or click to the class you are interested in and identify the specific subclass's best relating to your topic. You may need some assistance in understanding the hierarchial listing of subclasses. Many are subclasses of subclasses. 5. Access the Classification Definitions. It used to be on microfiche, but now you can access it online. Look up the specific class and subclass under study. Make sure you are really hunting for items resembling the definition of this class/subclass. Often additional hints are given for other places to look, including classes no longer existing. 6. Keep cycling through the three tools (Classification Index, Manual of Classification and Classification Definitions) until you identify the appropriate classes and subclasses. 7. Search the database to identify patents in the classes/subclasses identified. 8. Examine the ABSTRACT & IMAGE of these patents to identify those resembling your device. Make copies of the drawings, abstract and description of patents closely resembling your invention and of inventions serving the same purpose. After completing Steps 1 to 7, examine the patents for: a. Companies frequently appearing as assignees (patents assigned to them). Search for other patents assigned to these companies in an attempt to identify more patents in the area of interest. b. Inventors frequently appearing on the patents (both independents and those working for companies). Search for other patents listing these individuals as inventors in an attempt to identify more patents in the area of interest. c. Look for words and combinations of words in the patents of interest. Sort the words into groups. Some will describe one aspect of the invention and some will describe another. Record the search words on the list started earlier. Search for other patents containing these words in an attempt to identify more patents in the area of interest. Be aware of what portion of the patent you are searching (some search abstract only, front page only, full texts). d. Examine the patents cited as reference by the patents of interest to see if some of them are of interest as well. e. Examine the class and subclass info of the patents of interest in an attempt to identify other classes and subclasses that may contain patents of interest. Search these new classes/subclasses for additional patents of interest. 9. Keep cycling through steps 1 to 8 over and over until no more patents of interest are identified. Conclusion The patent search has become an effective tool for the mining of the patent data, which help in the competitive analysis. A throughout knowledge of the different patent database, their classification system is required for a in depth patent search. Patent search is crucial for the patentability, validity, infringement analysis etc. Thus a skilled patent search professional must know the various search procedures, databases limitations and technical tools and software to reveal a good search result. (Comment on this)
11:20 am	Mining Patent Data for Competitive Intelligence Patents are not new, their presence was noted long back during 16th Centaury. 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 and identify 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 critically incorporates 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, Delphion, Dialog, Micopat, etc. which also include inbuilt analysis tools. The data obtained form 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. Patent searching and analysis is done based on the objective. Patent data can be used for the completive intelligence in different ways as mentioned below: • Theme Search: Theme searches provide the overview of patents related to your field of interest. These searches are helpful to detect the recent trend of your technology area and to establish your R&D direction. As these searches are fully client-oriented, the point of our work and report format is supposed to be various according to your needs. • Patentability Search (Novelty Search): Patentability search is the first step of patenting process. A patentability search surveys patents filed in each national intellectual property office to check whether there exist inventions similar to yours. If you have a plan to file your invention to other countries, this search is essential because the foreign application is quite costly. • Search by keyword (Assignee, Inventor, etc): This search provides the information of patents retrieved by specific keywords including assignee, inventors, or IPC, etc. • Family patent / Legal status search. • Current Awareness Search: This search is to report new development in particular technology or patenting activity of competitors regularly. You can keep in touch with recent technology as well as detect your rival's R&D achievement and legal status of a particular patent with which you should consider continuously. This search is performed at interval specified by your requirement: weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Category. • Legal Status report - Keep informed the current legal status and expected legal action of a particular patent. • New Patent report - Keep informed the newly published or granted patents categorized in specific technology area defined by your searching queries. • Patenting Activity report - Keep informed patenting activity of a particular assignee or inventor who you are interested in. • Infringement Search: Infringement search is to check whether patent which can be infringed by your product being supposed to launch newly in a certain country exist or not in that country. • Invalidity Search: When you intend to make some claims of a particular patent invalid, the invalid search can provide some prior art references that disclose claims that are infringed by the subject disclosure. • Patent Map (Patent Analysis): Quantitative analysis based on statistical data of bibliographic information (country, assignee, IPC, etc). Qualitative analysis of core patents, Technological road map, multifarious analysis. • Right-to-Use Searches: Right-to-Use searches are conducted, prior to marketing a new product, to confirm that the new product does not infringe on an existing patent or potentially infringe on a patent application. Conclusion 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. (Comment on this)
11:18 am	India a Global Platform for Knowledge Outsourcing Outsourcing is not new for the country like India. It was started dates back during 1960s. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the long-term contracting out of non-core business processes to an outside provider to help achieve increased shareholder value. BPO saves precious management time and resources and allows focus while building upon core competencies. After BPO, India has now set its sights on becoming a global hub for knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), a new terminology is evolved for the business related to the patents and intellectual property. As India has the second largest English speaking scientific manpower pool in the world after the U.S. most of the Global competitors are looking forward to India to outsource their IPR needs related to patent searching, prior art search, infringement and validity search etc,. In a survey it was found that Indian graduates cost 50%+ lower than the U.S. and initial setup cost are half those in U.S. According to the Rick Wills, CEO, of Tektronix Inc. "In India, free-market reforms are creating the world's largest back office, transforming the country into a major force in IT, outsourcing, and critical service application delivery." Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) study saying that KPO would grow at 46 per cent to become $17 billion sector by 2010. The BPO industry, only 26%. Global KPO pie in 2010 will be around $17 billion of which $12 billion (70%) will be outsourced to India.” Thus KPO is going to be global hub for the country like India. Areas with significant potential for KPO include pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and ICT, besides legal support, intellectual property research and design and development for automotive and aerospace industries, CII stated. KPO involves high-end processes like valuation research, investment research, patent filing, legal and insurance claims processing, patents and prior-art search, etc. India with its knowledge base and lower costs will be leading the pack in the race for KPO businesses. The economy of an industry is fueled by its innovation and thus there is a need to protect your innovations in order to make money from them. The firm protection of intellectual property requires a planned investment of both time and money. There are many ways by which you can protect your invention to avoid others making money from your efforts. When a company starts of thinking of a new project or going to file a patent for a newly developed product, it is suggested to conduct a state-of-art search or prior art search. This service is provided by many KPO firms in India at reasonable cost and better quality. Intellavate, pangea3, evalueserves, SciTech patent Art, Dolcera a lot more the companies which are providing these services. Thus it is assumed that KPO will be a global hub among the student in Indian in near future, with more demand for the people expert in this area. (Comment on this)
11:10 am	Patents: A Tool for Technological Intelligence Patents are the largest source of technological information. Patent are given to the inventor as a reward for its innovation in the form of the exclusive right of the monopoly for a period of 20 years from the priority date of the invention. Due to advancement in the IT sector and internet, now these valuable documents are in the reach of the general public. Any person skilled in the art can go through various patent databases and after a search can get the patent document of their need. There are different patent databases viz, USPTO, EPO, JPO, etc freely open for the public access. If we go through the patents related to a specific technological area, we will be able to find the lots of information about the life cycle of the technological innovation viz., • evolutionary path of a specific technology, • technological development, • technological diversification, • technology merges, • major players in specific technological area, • key points of the specific technology, “The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) revealed that 90% to 95% of all the world’s inventions can be found in patented documents.” Patent analysis can reveals very valuable informations, which is not available anywhere. After patent search the crucial part is the patent analysis, and one have to be very concise about their objective of the study. The information in the patent documents can be utilized in different form according to the need and mapped accordingly to get the picture of the entire analysis in snapshots. Patent data can be used for the preparation of technological landscapes. Logistic mathematics and circle mathematics can be very useful in the plotting of the technological landscape. It can reveal the evolutionary trend of a technology, how it is evolved from a basic technology, along with the period of the technological diversification and its nature. These maps will also give the detailed overview of the merging of the different technologies to give rise to break-through technologies. These types of maps will be very useful for the R&D personals to evaluate the position of their research and technology, and also they will find way to more innovate more advanced and valuable technology. In the today’s global context firms need to know what technologies can competitors choke easily, and may be attempting to. They also need to know the spaces in technologies where competition is intense, and the areas where competitors are concentrating their IP development and their R&D efforts. They need to be able to track patent acquisition and development strategies and chart out the competitive landscape. To evaluate technology before making any investment decision, firms need to know the pace of patenting activity in the technology, which patents embody fundamental ideas in the technology and how vulnerable the firm’s technologies are to patent infringements. This will give them much needed information in deciding between technology development and technology acquisition. The ability to extract relevant information from patent literature is a crucial success factor for anyone involved in technological innovation. The technology mapping technique’s that can be used to transform patent information into knowledge that can influence decision-making. Patents are an important source of technological intelligence that companies can use to gain strategic advantage. Technology Intelligence is a can be used for gathering, analyzing, forecasting, and managing external technology related information, including patent information. Computational patent mapping is a methodology for the development and application of a technology knowledgebase for technology and competitive intelligence. The primary deliverables of patent mapping is in the form of knowledge visualization through landscape and maps. These maps provide valuable intelligence on technology evolution/revolution, nature of various types of pioneering; big; pure; and emerging players, state-of-the-art assessment, etc. These types of technological maps will prove to be a valuable multiplier in R&D and commercialization activities, in various ways including the following: • Developing further insights in response to strategic requirements and policy formulation in the organization • Forecasting and identifying technological activities and trends in the industry • Aiding in the visualization of alternative development and growth paths available to the organization • Enabling pre-emptive recognition and action on potential licensing opportunities • Identifying prospective partners and clients • Identify technology discontinuities and areas of opportunities in their chosen technologies • Monitor and evaluate the technological process of competitors and potential competitors • Support decisions on foray and investment into particular technologies and sub-technologies • Surveillance of technological progress of competitors as well as to alert oneself to new entrants to the field • Spotting of white spaces or opportunity areas within a dense technological domain • Creative tool to simulate new ideas and create new IP • Complementing corporate IP filing strategies • Support technology proposals for large scale national and international level projects • Support investment and technology due diligence on companies Patent mapping can be an integral part of IP management. It can uncover valuable information hidden in patents and can provide useful indicators for technical trends, market trends, competitors changes and technological profile and innovation potential of a company. Patent maps are visual representations of patent information that has been mined and aggregated or clustered to highlight specific features. There is a high degree of flexibility in visualization, which may be in the form of time-series or as spatial maps. We provide a more market and technology oriented analysis of the complete set of patent portfolio assets via our patent mapping services. Patent mapping can be used to ascertain the quality of patents with respect to prevailing technology and the extent to which patents affect the technology. This is a valuable input in technology sourcing/development and R&D decisions. Patent mapping can be indispensable for both firms that have an under-utilized patent profile and are looking to license/assign it at the most favorable terms, as well as to firms that are looking at developing patent portfolio strength in a particular technological field. Mere subject specialization is not enough for this, but analytical thinking and innovations are very essential. Today lots of software resources are available for mapping the patent data, but almost all are confined to bibliographic informations. The machine work cannot be compared with that of human intelligence. Patent mapping requires many skills. First and foremost among these is an ability to understand the complex scientific ideas protected by the patents themselves. Although it is possible to create a patent map by analyzing the relationships between patents without understanding the subject matter, such a map is often useless and needs to be refined by someone who understands the intricacies of the particular scientific discipline that is the basis of the invention. Thus, I expect that the need for people with scientific (and engineering) expertise in the field of patent mapping is on the increase. That’s why today lots of KPO firm are looking for the right individual and there is a huge demand today, which will certainly increase in the near future. (Comment on this)