White Space Analysis: White space in literal terms can be termed as an opportunity. Essentially, “White Space” is an area where there is quite less or no innovation or in other words, no patenting activity has been done in that particular field or industry. “White Space” helps to designate a systematic methodology to identify this absence (or much lower density) of patent/protected prior art in a specific area or product or industry as a primary driver of decision making in order to make the company be the “first-to-market”. Tools like Patent Landscape Analysis and Competitive Intelligence analysis further help to research in the White Space. Customer research is also another tool that might help to identify areas with unmet needs or unidentified ones.

There is no doubt that a crucial facet of any innovation assessment is that when a corporate intends to introduce a new product or technology, it needs to evaluate at an early stage as to whether or not said technology introduction/commercialization will yield fruits of its innovation efforts, and/or whether it would be sued for infringement by a third party.

Discovering white space in trade isn’t enough to make strategic business decisions. Fastidiously analysing white space known with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) permits organizations to become aware of the patent landscape they operate in.

The process of white-space analysis starts with exploration for what has already been done and creating extrapolations and generating concepts to search out what else is to be done in order to deliver something new in market. Alternatively, if one has already got a thought in mind, he/she/it would need to scout for literature, art, and also the market to check said idea/product construction is already known in the art or protected through an IP before continuing with the development.

Once a gap has been identified, a targeted search can be conducted to identify and locate for patents/non-patent references to confirm if the gap really exists and the density of patents is either nill or extremely low so that possible opportunity can be explored. This confirmation can be undertaken to clarify and evaluate if its truly a white space or is already heavily inhabited with similar patents. There are some totally different processes for locating a white space (depending on what the intentions are).

Below are exemplary reasons for actively undertaking a White-Space Analysis:

• Facilitate teams/research groups with analytics & development professionals to produce unanimous picks on meeting goals for innovation in technology or for future investments.
• Facilitate managers in the IP domain to establish gaps and intervals as part of a patent landscape exercise, where there is little to no patenting activity. This can help in facilitating and undertaking focused innovation and infrastructure development to that specific area only.
• Showcase various trends in the field of IP, and indicate the direction in which the industry is moving, which can guide the scope of future development of a product.
• White Space Analysis creates diverse portfolios by increasing patents for a company or product which provides with a further edge over competitors.
• Enables better appreciation of true value of a company by identifying, at regular intervals, current innovation production capabilities and areas where competitors can capitalize and wherever there is scope for improvisation.
• Motivates the company to actively engage in those specific areas of interest where the competitors have not/are not focussed/focusing, and therefore create less competition and more success.

White Spaces in a particular industry/field can be known by an organization or across an industry. Finding areas where a business specifically lacks proprietary technology compared to competitors is definitely eye-opening, and this approach to white space mapping establishes areas that can be fulfilled by arriving at a solution to competitors’ IP.

Areas lacking innovation are probably business opportunities. Pursuing, patenting, and transforming these opportunities into realities would need resources. With opportunities clearly identified, it’s easier to strategically apportion time, talent, budgets, and different resources to inventions filling a void within the market. These selections require a knowledge base perspective, with R&D, legal, business development, and promoting groups enjoying a role.

The primary step in determining white-space mapping is to see whether or not the said exercise is being approached from an internal, external or future perspective. These are mentioned henceforth:

• Internally centered perspective: It is an inward-looking tool to map a company’s existing talents to find new opportunities that competition may capitalize on. This is often used to see how effectively a company can react to opportunities or threats inside the concerned market and in addition find ways that to expand the company.
• External-centered perspective: It starts with mapping out the product or services in a very specific market and seeing if all wants are being met within that selected market. The aim of this perspective is to search out gaps within existing markets that have a chance of being made the most of.
• Future centered Perspective: This is completed with strategic foresight gathered equally to other perspectives, however information is collected based on outwardly focused mapping. Current market trends, extrapolations can be created to form assumptions concerning future trends, which can be maximized when reasonable and justifiable extrapolations are created.

Opportunities diagnosed via white space mapping tell strategic plans for the future, together with how an enterprise will develop and whether or not or now no longer it’ll diversify. Thorough white space mapping can be the most effective way to pinpoint gaps inside current industries’ generation landscapes. Examining white space skills also can pick out generation traits pointing to completely new industries adjoining to their cutting-edge operations.

• Advanced Tools for analysis and review: Our technology analysis tools will give the clients a detailed graphical and easy and comprehensible set results that will showcase the white spaces of the technology of interest of the client.
• Detailed Technology Analysis: Over the time new and several methods have been developed to identify gaps in the technological landscape by plotting various variables such as problems identified in the prior arts, solutions from the known patents or literature, publication data, technology timelines, competitor focuses, alternative solutions solving similar bottlenecks, etc.
• Competitive Intelligence: Our reporting has a graphical representation of results which enlists major players and competitors, their key focus areas and also the date-wise trends in their technology development.
• Bibliographic Insights: A technological white space analysis gives clients’ bibliographic information such as the date of filing, publication, and expiry of patents. For non-patent literature such as products, articles, and research papers, we provide relevant dates. Various parameters are plotted together to identify various possible white spaces in the landscape. It is possible that not all the white spaces identified in the analysis are technologically feasible to fill the gaps or to improvise on.