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Patent Information is a Necessary Calibration Tool: How the Pilgrims’ Journey is a Metaphor for the Innovation Process

Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I am a strong advocate of the use of patent information in the front end of innovation processes.  (More on this here, here and here.)  Relatively few innovation professionals actually do so, however, likely because it can be difficult for innovators to understand how to change the longstanding paradigm where lawyers are perceived to be the people who "put the 'no' in innovation."  Put simply, I find that innovation professionals prefer to leave anything smelling of legal advice out of the front end of their processes because they think they will not be able to do their jobs if the lawyers show up to their meetings. Of course, it makes little sense for innovation professionals to make significant business decisions involving new products or technology without also knowing whether they will be able to own the fruits of their innovations

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Proposal for a Reality-Based Methodology for Measurement of Corporate Intangible Asset Value

In recent years, financial analysts came to believe that intangible asset value forms an increasing aspect of overall corporate value. These experts generally agreed that intangible asset value made up at least 70 % of the total market cap of the average corporation, an increase of an estimated 20 % in 1975. Not surprisingly, however, the recent global economic downturn has resulted in a steep decline in the amount of market cap attributed to intangible assets. Experts now say that the current (market adjusted) corporate value attributable to intangible assets is "less than 50 %." To someone who has toiled in the trenches of intangible asset protection at both the law firm and corporate levels, the at least 70 % generalization always possessed a sense of being pulled out of the air, as does the new

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Existing Sources of Investment Information Failed Us: Patent Landscaping Analytics Provide a Necessary Innovation for Investors

As global stock markets continue to struggle, smart investors seeking to capitalize on relatively cheap stock prices are searching for promising investment opportunities. Unfortunately, however, most investors are likely relying on the same sources of investment information that failed to accurately predict the current stock market situation. If the predictive nature of this information has been wrong time and time again, why do investors continue to rely on it? The answer is pretty simple: investment professionals lack knowledge that alternative sources of information exist. One such alternative approach to making investment decisions involves using patent landscaping analytics to assess existing investment in a particular product or technology area. My research demonstrates that properly conducted patent landscaping analytics can effectively allow one to predict the future trajectory of product development by companies. For example, as I have written about here and here, the fact that Google and Yahoo intended to significantly

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Patent analytics devoid of the competitive and business insights embedded in the claims are worthless

First generation patent analytics methodologies viewed patent documents as containing information that needed to be collected, culled, reviewed and graphed. This approach considered patents as data sources. This permitted large volumes of patent data to be collected and nicely packaged, irrespective of the reason that the patent filer undertook the effort and expense to make the filing.Significantly, companies do not typically disclose valuable trade secret scientific and technical information to their competitors—as required in a patent filing—without having a defined business-related purpose for such effort and expense. As discussed above, the claims of a patent document reveal what the patent filer seeks to own in a patent application or does own in an issued patent. The business purpose of a patent filing is only truly decipherable from an understanding of the subject matter of the claims. Omission of claims analysis from patent analytics thus ignores the critical business information present