Beware of Those Who Would Sell You Worthless Patent Landscapes

Patents contain two types of information: 1. technical information in the disclosure; and 2. what the patentee owns in the claims. The patent disclosure generally provides broad and fairly non-specific information about the technical area to which the patent relates. In contrast, the claims of a patent specifically set forth what the patentee owns and, as such, the claims define what the patentee seeks to keep you from doing. Put another way, the claims of a patent puts limits on the freedom of the non-patentee (that is, you) to use technology for his business purposes that, but for the patent, the non-patentee would be otherwise free to employ.

Accordingly, for a patent data analysis to be relevant to inform your innovation and technology investment decisions, the search results must provide you with insights into how existing patent rights will prevent your freedom of action in the marketplace. Unfortunately, existing patent landscaping methodologies do not specifically examine the claims of the patents. These methodologies instead consider the patents as a whole to be sources of data to be collected and analyzed in the aggregate. I believe that reliance on these existing patent landscaping methodologies to inform your business decisions could lead you to the wrong conclusions about how existing patent rights will affect your innovation and technology investment payback.