Gurgaon/New Delhi, India: Ever wondered what Google has been up to lately? How about Yahoo!, Microsoft, IBM or other high tech companies? Many professionals, companies and organizations frequently have the same questions about their key competitors. However, since this information is proprietary and highly confidential, there is almost no likelihood of getting these answers directly from the companies.
Since these leading edge companies are constantly innovating and creating barriers for their competitors, they are also continuously filing patent applications and getting many – if not most – of these granted. Hence, searching through databases, such as those provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which contain recently published patent applications and granted patents, is one way of gaining an insight into the strategic direction of these companies.
Companies try to keep their strategies secret for as long as possible. Especially in the technology sector, where changes and innovations take place very fast, preventing competitors from knowing about their future products and services can be critical.
Evalueserve, a global research and analytics firm, recently used a combination of IP search techniques and found, for example, that as much as 88 percent of Google’s US patent portfolio may not be uncovered by simply searching traditional databases. In addition, Evalueserve has discovered several interesting patent applications, which provide hints that Google may be in the process of developing its own Google Phone. Finally, the patent applications Evalueserve has tracked also suggest that Google might be targeting the TV and video games markets and may be developing a device that can facilitate supermarket shopping with mobile phones.
Evalueserve research shows that traditional search techniques that only use databases such as the USPTO database, which comprises granted patents and published applications, for analysing a company’s patent portfolio may not be sufficient.
Evalueserve suggests the following complementary techniques:
• One technique is searching through patent-assignment databases, some of which are freely available while others are provided by Intellectual Property (IP) database vendors as licenses. For example, a complementary search within the USPTO patent-assignment database can yield some of the missing ownership information, especially if the granted patents and published applications were filed by one entity and later acquired by another.
• Another technique is checking accuracy by using complementary databases, e.g., by correlating Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filing information with USPTO filing information.
• Yet another technique is performing inventor-based searches along with assignee-based searches which often yield more meaningful results. This technique really works well because there are many published applications for which ownership information may not have been recorded earlier.
By using a combination of the techniques mentioned above, firms such as Evalueserve can provide clients with a more holistic view of a company’s IP activities and innovation efforts. This information is more valuable than ever in today’s fast-paced world of innovation.
