Patents filing in India have risen 30% in the last five years. The number of patents granted during this period has almost tripled according to the Economic Survey 2021-22. Survey noted that 58,502 patents were filed in India in 2020-21, compared to the 39,400 patents filed in 2010-11, which number has now reached over 65000 in 2022. However, before acceptance of a patent application, and commencement of the filing process, an invention intended to be patented has to undergo three-pronged scrutiny, i.e. novelty, innovation and industrial applicability, and hence, to achieve conformity to these criteria, a user must be aware of the existing IP landscape in which the invention falls.

In such a market situation, where the race to be the first to innovate has become so cut-throat, Patent Landscape Analysis Reports can go a long way.

A Patent Landscape Analysis, also interchangeably referred to as Patent Analytics, is a tool/exercise that gives its users an overview and analysis of the existing patent literature and development progress on a specific technology in a given country as well as the rest of the world, more commonly termed as Patent Summaries or Patent Landscape, thereby enabling decision makers or stakeholders to analyse and monitor market dynamics, and make informed decisions for engineering and business development, and prevent exposure to potential legal risks. This streamlines policy deliberations, technology up-gradations and transfers, monetisation of innovations, etc.

A primer on current situation of development of any technology helps clients strategise and pivot their research and development efforts in the right direction. It also helps customers to unearth ongoing patent trends, giving a fair idea of a company’s relative patenting strength. It provides users with actionable competitive intelligence concerning the particular area of interest.

A Patent Landscape Analysis Report gives clients an analysis of competitive IP landscape regarding the technology in development and what its future looks like to ascertain its industrial applicability. The factor differentiating market leaders from the other players is access to information, resulting in a competitive edge to make informed decisions. It is this access that Patent Landscape Analysis Reports supply.

Another essential feature of Patent Patent Landscape Analysis is that it provides what we call a ”white space analysis”. White space analysis is a tool that enables a company to spot gaps between the products and services it has already sold to customers and the other products or services that the company provides and helps the company strategise a mechanism to fill out the gaps by identifying the target area where the scope for invention or innovation exists. After that, a company carries out ‘White Space Mapping’, an analysis either internally or externally focused, or solely targeted towards determining future trends and applicability, and thus, takes a call as to whether to cross-sell or up-sell their products, thereby generating revenue.

In simpler words, cross-selling would mean to sell products that complement previously purchased products- for instance, if someone bought a guitar, cross-selling would involve selling them a tuner, protection cover, and a strap; up-selling, on the other hand, would mean selling better, more advanced versions of the products already purchased- for instance, sticking to the previous example of the guitar, up-selling in this context would mean selling a better understanding of the guitar with higher quality wood, or a built-in amplifier.

After the Patent Landscape Analysis/Analytics, innovation and research can find a new focus, and resources can be directed to the areas competitors haven’t explored. The analysis also provides insight into the market leaders in the specific technology the client chooses and identifies their future IP and R&D strategies for business ventures. Such an assessment provides much-needed current state of the art for innovators to build on their products. Mergers, acquisitions, and licensing become easier to plan, given that all the relevant information is available in the Patent Technology Landscape Analysis report.

This is an excellent tool for companies and even for public policymakers while making schemes for local manufacturers, technology transfer, investments in R & D, etc. Since policymaking is a susceptible process that can potentially affect a large mass of the population, policy-makers require strong empirical foundations before any decision is put into force. Policymakers are most often searching for geographical area-specific data, which Patent Landscape Analysis can objective offer and give insight into.

IIPRD regularly undertakes several Patent Landscape Analysis/Analytics projects meticulously to gather information about a particular technological area to facilitate risk management, devise patent filing strategies, and other functions.

A Patent Technology Landscape Analysis Report will also give users relevant information about legal status of the products they develop and the related technology that might pose possible legal intersections between clients’ patents and existing ones. Our comprehensive data mining, visualisation, and analysis teams at IIPRD scan USPTO, WIPO and EPO databases, press releases, blogs, technical specfications, product offerings, and other sources for insights and figures relating to the client’s products.

Each report caters to the client’s unique requirements and provides a refined analysis of information sought at different levels. The pieces are crafted to serve client’s requirements in addition to standard framework of every assessment. The procured information is then presented comprehensively and lucidly, headlining the keynotes in the matter.

The foremost step that is taken to make a Patent Landscape Analysis Report is defining goals of the client. The client can be anybody, ranging from a player in the market, an observer, a government agency, or a policy think-tank. Each of these organisations has different motives behind the requirement for information concerning a particular Patent Landscape. Once the agenda is set, the Patent Landscape Reports can provide specifically requested information and any relevant information along the lines of such agenda as per the client’s requirements to conduct its analysis.

Boundaries of the extent of research are defined distinctly so as not to bombard the report with irrelevant information. This demarcation could be done in various ways – information could be divided based on geography, time frame, specific technology or patent literature etc. After that, during the preparation of the Patent Landscape Report, events in a given area of technology can be time stamped.

Such analysis can pave way for interested parties to understand the stage/level at which an existing technology has reached. Despite having several utilities, Patent Landscape Reports fail to stay relevant for long owing to ever-changing nature of the market they seek to analyse, and therefore need to be periodically conducted every 3-6 months so that the updated information is presented for real-time and informed decision making.